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

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