Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS (Unnatural Acts: Theorizing the Performative)

AIDS has had myriad effects on gay culture, and its influence on gay writing and theater have perhaps been the most notable. While novels and poetry by gay men and lesbians have recorded the epidemic, performance art has most closely reflected and embraced AIDS activism. David Roman's Acts of Intervention chronicles the emergence of AIDS as a subject in performance and theater, from the post-modern, high-camp, drag extravaganzas of Lypsinka to the overtly political parody of the Afro Pomo Homos to Tim Miller's playful, nude monologue performances: art as politics. But Roman is as interested in politics as art, and much of Acts of Intervention impressively discusses how public activity protests against government AIDS policy are "performances" themselves. Roman's knowledge of AIDS, art, and gay culture is exhaustive, and his writing is clear, succinct, and informed. Gay culture and art has always been about becoming visible and powerful, and Acts of Intervention charts how this has occurred over the past 17 years.