16-GAY NEWS-August 1978

Gay Theater

by Thom Shafer

As with many aspects of the gay experience, any analysis in depth of gay theatre and gay playwrights must deal in varied opinions and contradictions. Firstly, we must limit ourselves to the writers and plays of the 20th century. Those men and women writers before 1900 are not definable as writers of the gay experience on the evidence available. We cannot assume that the classic Greek Euripedes was gay simply because he extolled the Greek ideal. We may want to believe our suspicions of Shakespeare and his mysterious "Dark Lady." But scholars differ greatly on the identity of the Bard himself, and his sexual preference is only one of the debated details.

None of the Baroque, Restoration, Romantic or Victorian playwrights championed the homosexual cause, though many were probably themselves gay, knew and used gay actors, or included subtle references to gay or bisexual intrigues in their comedies and dramas.

The tragic martyrdom of Oscar

Wilde should not be confused with the content of his plays. Renowned theatre authority Eric Bentley calls "The Importance of Being Earnest" the "most significant piece of gay theatre." His reasoning is colored by a great admiration and empathy for Wilde. Playwright George Whitmore sites "Earnest" as the "paradigm of gay theatrical style-swift, witty, subversive." Both Bentley and Whitmore would have to admit that Wilde's brilliant double-entendres and private jokes were widely enjoyed by his contemporary audiences and not only because they were oblique gay references. "Earnest" contains enough wit and sophistication for even a naive straight English student to enjoy. In Wide's trials for sodomy in 1895, he was not asked to defend his plays as "wholesome works of art," though he was challenged on several poems and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Today, the most ardent homophobe cannot help but be charmed and entertained by "Earnest" and Wilde's other urbane plays. They remain classics because they are great theatre. Any gayness, intended or interpreted, is beside the point.

Therefore, cannot discuss the subject of gay plays before our time. There is a well-known and respected fraternity of 20th century writers, each now known as gay, who wrote or continue to write for the theatre. Their plays have qualified with the passing of time as worthy literature and form the nucleus of many school and professional theatre repertories. Gertrude Stein, Somerset Maugham, Jean Cocteau, Noel Coward, Jean Genet, Tennessee Williams, Thorton Wilder, William Inge, Carson McCullers and Edward Al-

after 50 years, so

bee helped to shape and refine the modern theatre, using their genius, discipline and insight to comment on the human condition.

But few if any of the most important living gay writers for the theatre are known, and fewer still known to be gay. Even those who have written on gay issues don't freely choose to come out. The risks have not entirely disappeared. Many careers have been harmed when a playwright dared to take a male friend to an opening. Gay authors and directors still marry women if they're discreet or just smart. It isn't fair to force them to come out. Many famous names in modernist circles don't wish to be identified as gay, even though their work might be of interest principally to gays. They can't gamble on being known because their work is often denied criticism or publication as a result.

Many young gay playwrights con-

tinue to turn out sentimental plays about straight life or neuter musicalcomedies. A living can't be made writing only gay material, and one's living is endangered if one produces any at all.

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We Americans have always loved homosexuality-as long as it is guilt-ridden or sublimated. The only serious themes on Broadway before 1960 concerned confused adoles-. cense and supressed homosexuality. Playwrights were forced to depict the lonely lives of outcast sexual deviants as tragedy that any audience could relate to. Gays were shown in the same condition as deaf-mutes, cripples, blacks or lepers.

Most of the work written today by new gay playwrights is, admittedly, depressingly apologist and unimaginative. This is true of most creative work of any kind. Few openly gay plays have proven to be commercially viable to hard-boiled producers. Wide audience acceptance seems available only to plays reinforcing straight prejudices and superiority. A broader showing and more serious appreciation of gay plays will eventually depend solely upon their distinctive artistic merit, and not upon their limited political relevance.

Before we can consider the need

for gay theatre and its diverse goals, we must first agree that any theatre

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form should be coldly judged as good, bad or mediocre. We must separate ourselves from the emotional attraction to any play, revue or entertainment that might be labeled "gay." Only with objective reasoning will we glean any personal or group truth from the body of new gay plays now being written and produced for us.

There is no unity in the homosex-

ual life. But there is a shared experience of sexual otherness and social exclusion. This similarity of outlook engendered leads gays to believe that they speak with a common tongue, which is not feasible for the simple reason that sexuality or its denial appears in varying degrees of intensity in different individuals be they gay, bisexual or straight.

The principle power of gay plays is the ability to cut across áll grids of class, race, language, profession and geography in order to reflect the experiences of a minority whose central psychology is dictated by their ethical and physical ostracism from society. Gay theatre can encourage those who

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Thom Shafer