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

Sinfield, Alan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300081022 ISBN 13: 9780300081022

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1999

Synopsis

This intriguing book tracks stage representations of lesbians and gay men from Oscar Wilde to the present day. Alan Sinfield examines scores of British and American plays produced and viewed in alternative as well as West End and Broadway theaters. Theater, he argues, was and is an important place for the circulation of images of homosexuality and for the exploration of concepts of gender and sexuality.

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0300081022
• ISBN 13: 9780300081022
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 416