Out on Stage: Lesbian and Gay Theater in the Twentieth Century - Softcover

Sinfield, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300191561 ISBN 13: 9780300191561

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2000

Synopsis

This intriguing and authoritative book tracks stage representations of lesbians and gay men from Oscar Wilde to the present day. Alan Sinfield argues that, despite and because of censorship and discretion, twentieth-century theater has been viewed as a gay space. When we attune ourselves to the idioms of the different decades, theater emerges as an important place for the circulation of images of homosexuality and for the exploration of concepts of gender and sexuality.
Sinfield examines scores of British and American plays and playwrights, including works by Wilde, Maugham, Coward, Hellman, O'Neill, Rattigan, Williams, Le Roi Jones, and Orton. He locates plays in the contexts in which they were produced and viewed, whether it be West End and Broadway or more bohemian little club theaters, Off-Broadway, and fringe. He discusses many women writers―from Djuna Barnes and Agatha Christie to Lorraine Hansberry and Caryl Churchill―and analyzes the implications of homosexuality in their work. He explains why in the 1950s British and American plays began to differ in their representations of gays, how the 1960s produced an exuberant cultivation of "kinky" humor and gay political activism in theaters, and what impact AIDS has had on theatrical productions. Sinfield concludes with provocative questions about the direction of new theater writing, asserting that representations in theater continue to challenge notions of our sexual potential.

About this title

Review:

With the elegant sweep typical of his previous books (e.g., The Wilde Century, 1994), Alan Sinfield takes on an entire century of theater--gay theater seems almost redundant by the time he has finished--asserting not only that drama "has been a particular site for the formation of dissident sexual identities" but that, for over 100 years, theater and theatricality have been perceived and experienced as queer. Although scrupulously researched and shaped by a variety of poststructural approaches to literature and performance, Out on Stage avoids dryly academic prose, providing a lively and evocative exploration of a history rife with legends, eccentrics, and anecdotes. "It seems right to claim Maugham for gay drama," writes Sinfield, for example. "He embodies so much that is brave and despicable about the pre-Stonewall queer man." An excellent introduction to gay theater and a distinguished contribution to cultural studies at large. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly:

The study of theater and homosexuality is vital, asserts Sinfield (The Wilde Century, etc.), because "theater has been a powerful institution" in public life and an important "site for the formation of dissident sexual identities." Beginning with the career of Oscar WildeAwhose fin-de-si?cle plays introduced a startlingly modern and subversive gay sensibility to British theater, and whose trial and subsequent public humiliation functioned as a national morality playASinfield works his way through the plays of No?l Coward, Somerset Maugham, Tennessee Williams, Tony Kushner and Jane Chambers. In addition, he analyzes overlooked gay themes in such works as Rose Franken's Outrageous Fortune, Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap and Sholem Asch's The God of Vengeance. Sinfield's strongest and most original analyses address the effect of psychoanalysis on the representation of gay themes, how the idea of "bohemia" affected gay writers and the impact of Pinter's sparse dialogue on writing about outsider sexuality. Unfortunately, Sinfield, who is a professor of literature at Sussex University, is far more interested in gay male than lesbian theater. He devotes some space to "representations of lesbianism" and engages in solid discussions of such lesbian-themed plays as Edouard Bourdet's The Captive and Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour, but his treatment of such openly lesbian writers as Holly Hughes, Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw and their (lesbian-themed) works is perfunctory. His uneven approach mars an otherwise intelligent and provocative effort. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0300191561
• ISBN 13: 9780300191561
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416