1964: The Birth of Gay Theater - The Gay & Lbian Review

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.

THE GAY AND LBIAN THEATRIL LEGACY

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.