Gay Drama / Queer Performance? on JSTOR

Contents:

• GAY AND LBIAN THEATRE FTIVAL
• 1964: THE BIRTH OF GAY THEATER
• GAY PARTI & EVENTS
• THE GAY AND LBIAN THEATRIL LEGACY

GAY AND LBIAN THEATRE FTIVAL

Queer theatre is the accepted generic term for the gay theatre movement: one that embrac both men and women, that vers plays, mils, baret and jt about everythg else, and which has been gog strong Bra and Ameri for well over 40 years. In the opprsive 1950s, where every play had to be approved by the lord chamberla before uld be performed public, Brish dramatists were necsarily oblique their prentatn of gay issu. But dramatists at the time were obliged to work : when the hero of Emlyn Williams's superlative Acla (1950) is acced of havg sex wh an unrage girl Rotherhhe, I tomatilly assume Williams was really talkg about 's been hearteng to see gay wrers explog the eedom that me wh the aboln of censorship and the relaxatn of the law.

The 1970s saw the emergence of Gay Sweatshop Bra, found 1975, and the Gay Theatre Alliance Ameri, which burst to life not long after. And Bra over the last 20 years wrers such as Bryony Lavery, Phyllis Nagy (who is Amerin by birth), Kev Elyot, Alexi Kaye Campbell, Samuel Adamson, Mark Ravenhill and many others have all alt openly and explicly wh gay what is there to pla about an era when plays cludg Ravenhill's Mother Clap's Molly Hoe and Alan Bent's The Hab of Art occupy the stag of London's Natnal Theatre, when mils such as La Cage x Foll be prof wh preachg sexual tolerance and when specialised ftivals, offerg gay plays to primarily gay dienc, ntue to thrive?

It's also a ltle-noticed fact that when Gregory Doran assum ntrol of the Royal Shakpeare Company 2013 two of our big natnal pani will, for the first time ever, be n by gay I would like to see, however, are more plays on the Khner-Ravenhill mol which al wh sexualy a wir polil ntext.

1964: THE BIRTH OF GAY THEATER

More recently, Alexi Kaye Campbell's The Fah Mache (2011) aired the heated divisns the Anglin church towards homosexualy. And I'd have thought the ranro schism between old and young Tori towards gay marriage would be a rich subject for drama. Novelists om Jam Baldw to Alan Hollghurst and Philip Hensher have shown that gay wrers are as well-placed as anyone to plot the urse of polil and cultural change.

GAY PARTI & EVENTS

I jt wish more gay dramatists would rise to the challenge, so eagerly grasped by fictn wrers, of relatg personal dilemmas to public read: Not In Front of the Audience: homosexualy on stage by Nicholas Jongh (2002) Le of Bety by Alan Hollghurst (2004), for the nnectn mak between sexualy and the state of the natn. Here are ten of the plays that have ntributed to LGBTQ+ theatre's rich Drag by Mae WtThe Drag follows Rolly, a gay man who marri a woman to hi his sexualy, and the nsequenc of this. As an avid and unrelentg supporter of gay rights throughout her life, Mae Wt ma wav wh The Drag 1927, which she wrote unr pen name Jane Mast.

Faiar wh ntroversy followg her prev play Sex, The Drag ed the most outrage for her pictn of homosexualy and cross-drsg.

Wh a st of exclively gay actors om a Greenwich Village club, the play was a huge fancial succs, but was wily panned by crics and shut down due to obsceny laws and never ma to Broadway as planned. Bluefish Cove is a “gay woman’s haven” where a group of seven lbians are spendg their annual holiday.

THE GAY AND LBIAN THEATRIL LEGACY

Bt plac for LGBTQ+ theatre LondonBent by Mart ShermanMart Sherman’s harrowg play sh a light on the persecutn of gay men durg the Holot. Max (played by Ian McKellen the origal n at the Royal Court) is a gay man Berl the 1930s, taken to Dach wh his boyiend Rudy after the Night of Long Kniv. It is by no means as ntroversial as many plays wh central male gay them, but has to work doubly hard bee of this lack of other lbian storyl on the stage, somethg that is dire need of changg and that Fun Home self uld In Ameri by Tony Khner The exploratn of AIDS 1980s Ameri an epic unrtakg, and Angels Ameri is a suably epic play.

Hot on the heels of the Angels Ameri revival, Matthew Lopez asks what is like for the next generatn of young gay men New York, growg up and livg the shadow of the AIDS crisis. Penned by Tarell Alv McCraney (whose tobgraphil play beme spiratn for the Osr wng Moonlight) this 2008 play talks about what means to be black and to be gay. It remas jt as pertent today, alg wh the stggl that arise om the batn of misogyny and homophobia that are far om beg stamped out today’s society.