+ THAILAND of five homoerotic or bisexual publica- homosexuals have flourished. From the tions, led by Mithuna jbi], Mithuna, Jr. ancient Romans until very recently, per- (gay), and Neon (gay), a regular radio pro- formers were distrusted as outcasts, mis- gram broadcast from Bangkok, and the fits in the scheme of things: the outlaw beginnings of gay literary output in the actor and the sexual heretic were often the form of novels and short stories. same individual [and some psychiatrists Attitudeson homosexuality show are fond of equating the actor's egoist marlzed differences by class, relating to exhibitionism with an alleged homosex- power positions. While there appears to be ual love of display]. no "queerbashing" violence directed As homosexuality has become against homosexuality, there seems to be more conspicuous in everyday life, the a considerable amount of coercion, abuse stage, traditionally regarded as the mirror of authority positions, and rape of males. of life, has portrayed it more openly, both Peter Jaclzson comments that "the less- as a subject worthy of dramatic treatment ened resistance to having sex with a man and as an attitude that informs the produc- means that male rape or sexual attacks on tion. men appear to be significantly more com- Ancient Greek Theatre. Greek mon than in the West." As in other cul- classical theatre developed in a culture tures, however, rape of males is a taboo saturated with homoerotic attitudes and subject and is not reported to authorities. behaviors, but owing, perhaps, to deliber- ate excision by Byzantine and monastic BIBLIOGRAPHY. Eric Allyn and John P. librarians, there is little surviving evi- Collins, The Men of Thailand, San Francisco and Bangkok: Bua Luang, 1987; denceof these aspectsin drama. Lost trage- Peter A. Jackson, Male Homosexuality in dies include Aeschylus' Laius (467 B.c.), Thailand, New York: Global Academic about the man thought by the Greeks to Publishers, 1989. have invented pederasty; Niobe, which Geoff Puterbaugh displayed the love-lifeof Niobe's sons; and Myrmidons, concerning Achilles1 grief at the death of his lover Patroclus. This last THEATREAND DRAMA was afavorite of Aristophanes, who quoted As public performance, accessible it frequently. Other lost plays on the to a wide range of spectators, the theatre Myrmidon theme were written by has been more subject to the constraints Philemon (43615-379 B.C.] and Strattis of censorship than any other long-estab- (409-375 B.c.). Sophocles, too, wrote Lov- lished art. It is expected to confirm and ers of Achilles, whose surviving fragment endorse standard social values and to pres- describes the intricate workings of pas- ent the heterodox or the taboo in a manner sion. The oft-dramatised tragedy of the which will incite either derision or revul- house of Labdacus was, in the earlier sion. Consequently, homosexual senti- myths, triggered by Laius' lust-motivated ments, behavior and concerns have, until abduction of the son of his host during his recently, rarely appeared on stage; when foreign exile. Sophocles eschewed this epi- they have, their presentation has often sode, but it was the subject of Euripides' been skewed to the expectations and sen- lost Chrysippus (ca. 409 B.c.), apparently sibilities of convention-bound playgoers. created as a vehicle for his own male favor- At the same time, the practicing ite Agathon (447-4001399 B.c.], who was theatre, in its gregariousness, its opportu- noted for his "aesthetic" way of life. nities for artistic creativity, and its rela- (Another lost Chrysippus was composed tive tolerance, has been, at least from the by Strattis.] Euripides' masterpiece The sixteenth century, both in Western and Bacchae (405 B.c.) depicts the androgy- Eastern cultures, an arena where talented nous god Dionysus unsexing and de- THEATRE AND DRAMA 4 menting his antagonist and kinsman Pen- pecially those of Lucius Afranius (fl. later theus, before he sends him to his doom. second century of our era), credited to have But whereas the love and lust of introduced homosexuality into the genre. man for man was considered worthy of Among the later Greeks, actors were re- tragic treatment, effeminatemanners were spected as artists (Mary Renault's novel the stuff of comedy: Cnesippus was ridi- The Mask of Apollo offers a persuasive culed for inappropriately using a tragic recreation); but inRome, they were legally chorus of effeminates. The successful classified as "infamous," even if popularly comic poet Eupolis (445-ca. 415 B.c.) was regarded as desirable sexual catches. The attracted to this theme; his Those Who Emperors Caligula, Nero, and Trajan often Dye Their Hair (Baptai; 416115 B.c.] sati- took their male bedmates from the ranks rized members of the circle of Alcibiades, of actors, dancers, and mimes; the last who was rumored to have had him became notorious for the indecency of drowned for it. Surviving fragments sug- their performances. To increase the eroti- gest that they were ritual transvestites cism of their shows, the mimes introduced who spoke an obscene lingo of their own women on stage in what had hitherto been in ceremonies worshipping the goddess an exclusively male preserve. Cotytto. Eupolis' The Flatterers (Kolakes) The Orient. In the Oriental the- (431 B.c.), a satire on parasitism with side- atre, women were frequently banned from lights on compliant sexuality, won first the stage, either for religious or moralistic prize over Aristophanes' Peace. reasons; the resultant professional female The comedies of Aristophanes impersonator, the tan of Chi's Peking teem with references to pederasty and Opera, introduced in the reign of Ch'ien cross-dressing. Although his earthy he- Lung (1735-1 7961, and the onnagata of roes have no hesitation in declaring what Japan's Kabuki theatre, replacing boy play- fun it is to watch naked boys at the gymna- ers after 1652, exercised a pseudo-female sium and to fondle their scrotums, the ef- allure. In China actors, no matter what feminate (euryproktos or "broad-ass"J is they played, were frequently prostitutes, mercilessly mocked. In The Clouds (423 sought after by statesmen and scholars: B.c.), for instance, Right Reason rhapso- among the most famous of these actor- dizes on the "moisture and down" that favorites were Chin Feng (fl. 1590), Wei bloom on a youth's genitals "as on quinces" Ch'ang-sheng (fl. 1780), and Ch'en Yin- and wins his argument. Yet Cleisthenes is kuan (fl. 1790).The boy acting-troupes of regularly made a laughingstock for his nineteenth-century China were often lady-like carrying-on, and the central equated with male brothels, and certainly device of the Women's Festival (Thesmo- the boys' looks were regarded as more phoriazousai) (411 B.c.) is to have the pro- important than their talent. But these pe- tagonist disguise himself as a woman, dophilic passions were never reflected in under Cleisthenes' instruction, thus run- the Chinese dramatic repertory. On the ning the danger of being buggered when Kabuki stage, on the other hand, a bisexual captured and bound. love affair is the pivot of Tsuwamono Roman Theatre. Buggery on Tongen Sogo (1697), and a homosexual one compulsion remained a standard comic comprises a subplot in Asakusa Reigenki. topos in the Mediterranean basin. In Roman The most popular Korean enter- comedy, Plautus' characters mistake one tainment form before 1920 was the another for eunuchs and effeminates; his Namsadang, a traveling troupe of variety Casina (ca. 19G180 B.c.), in particular, is performers; a homosexual commune of 40 packed with jokes, puns and equivoca- to 50 males, it has been described as the tions on the theme. Sodomy frequently "voice of the common people" (Young Ja crops up in the farcical fabula togata, es- Kim). The company was divided into sut- 4 THEATRE AND DRAMA dongmo ("butch") and yodongmo Bibbiena's (1470-1520) bawdy La Calan- ("queen") members, the novices serving dria (1513)) but it was a common device in the elders and playing the female roles. commedia dell'arte as well as in comme- Despite Confucian disapproval of ped- dia erudita.Involuntary buggeryremained erasty, the troupe's sexual identity did not a basic joke: in Niccolb Machiavelli's put off village audiences, probably be- (1469-1527)Lo Clizia (1525),oldNicomaco cause its status as an outcast group made is sodomized in his sleep by his servant conventional standards irrelevant to it. Siro. Pietro Aretino's I1 Marescalco (15261 The institutionalized homosexuality of 7)features a pederastic hero, a chief groom the Namsadang raises questions about of the stables who is obliged by his master similar itinerant companiesin ancient and to marry a woman only to find to his great medieval Europe, and has an analogue in relief that the bride is a boy (thisserved as the enforced male bonding of acrobat a source of Ben Jonson's Epicoene, 1609). troupes. Late nineteenth-century com- Although Spanish Golden Age mentators on the circus noted that homo- drama dropped the homosexual references sexualrelationshipswerecommon among when it adapted Italian comedy, it often gymnasts and aerialists, a combination of featured the mujer varonil, a woman in physical contact and the need for trust. men's clothes who takes on the aggressive Bands of mummers and mountebanks role in the love-chase; farcical transves- may have shared such an ethos. tism was not uncommon, as in Lope de TheMiddleAges and Beginnings Vega's (1562-1635) El mes6n de la corte of the Modern Theatre in Europe. Christi- (TheInn of the Court, 1583?)and Monroy anity was antagonistic to the theatre, y Silva's El caballero-duma (The Lady partly on grounds of immorality; Clem- Cavalier), in which two men in drag are ent of Alexandria specifically rebuked the tricked into bed together. Intense Platonic obscenity of mimes who brought cinaedia relationships between single-sex couples or male prostitution on stage. When the are often depicted, as in the anonymous El theatre in Europe was reborn from the crotal6n (ca. 1553),but in a society where Church, the religious teleology of the sodomites were burned at the stake during drama precluded treatment of illicit love, the Inquisition, orthodox sexuality except in imitation of the classics. Nor always prevailed by the play's ending. was the burning of Sodom ever treated by TheElizabethan Stage. TheEliza- the mystery plays, although Jesuit school- bethan gender-confusion drama was com- drama in the Baroque age would drama- plicated by the fact that women were tize it with accompanying fireworks, as played by boy actors, a development from in Cornelius a Marca's Bustum Sodomae school drama. Thus, in William Shakes- (Ghent, 1615). The Renaissance revived peare's As You Like It (159911600), there is the comic treatment of homosexuality, the intricate enigma of a boy actor playing first in ribald farces by Bolognese stu- a girl disguising herself as a youth who acts dents, mocking burghers and clergy: one as a woman to aid histher wooer. The of these is Ugolino Pisani's Philogenia practice also required adjustments in per- (after 14351, wherein the boy hustler formance convention: nowhere in Antony Epifebo deploys his charms to snare the and Cleopatra (1607) do the passionate venal priest hodigio. lovers kiss. This aspect of the stage fueled Sexual ambiguity is the basis of condemnation by Puritans and reformers, "gender-confusion" comedy in which a who damned it as a hotbed of sodomy; male or female character disguises him/ there is scant hard evidence of homosex- herself as the opposite sex and attracts the ualactivity amongplayers and playwrights, amorous attentions of the "wrong" sex. but the imputation is not without founda- The archetype is Bernardo Dovizi da tion. Clear cases can be made for Nicholas THEATRE AND DRAMA 9

Udall(1505-1556), headmaster of Eton and Montague Summers typically overstates author of Ralph Roister Doister (between the case when he refers to "the prevalence 1534 and 1541), who admitted to "bug- of uranianism in the theatre" of the time; gery" with one of his students; and for it must be noted that fops, although Christopher Marlowe, whose own predi- mocked for such Frenchified behavior as lections found their way into his work: the the exchange of kisses in GeorgeEtheregels grand amour of the king and his favorite TheMan ofMode (1676),long to bed down Piers Gaveston in Edward I1 (1593))the women exclusively. (Despite their names, court of Henri 111 in The Massacre at Paris for instance, Sir Gaylove and Sir Butterfly (1593))and the scene between Ganymede in NewburghHamiltonls meDoating Lev- and Jupiter in Dido Queen of Carthage ers [I7151 are both inveterate womaniz- (1594).Whatever the homosexual compo- ers.) Pederasty is associated not with ef- nent of his sonnets, Shakespeare only feminates, but with decadent foreign courts occasionally portrayed the love of one man or decayed rakes who need a new stimu- for another in his dramatic works: when lus: in Edward Howard's me Usurper he did it was as a consuming, unspoken (1664)' the comments of Darnocles and passion that expressed itself in deeds: Hugo de Petra concerning a page are Antonio's sacrifice for Bassanio in The openly pedophilic, and in Aphra Behn's Merchant of Venice (1594 or 1596); the The Amorous Prince (1671),Lorenzo tries sea-captain Antonio's protection of Sebas- to seduce the boy Philibert who, however, tian in ZhvelfthNight (1600); and Achilles' turns out to be a girl in disguise. In Thomas avenging of Patroclus in Troilus and Cres- Otway's The Souldier's Fortune (1681),an sida (1602/3). elderly fool is delighted to discover--or so Further Developments in Eng- he thinks-that a girl he is tumbling is a land. Tudor Morality plays packed with boy. The rhymed extravaganza Sodom, or Protestant propaganda had displayed alle- The Quintessence of Debauchery (1684?), gorical characters named Sodomy to stand attributed to the Earl of Rochester, which for corrupt, courtly, and Catholic manners partly hymns the superiority of buggery to (as in John Bale's Three Laws, 1538). "n~rmal'~practices, was never performed. Throughout the Jacobean and Caroline The matchmaker Coupler is the periods, pederasty continued to be associ- only blatant "queen" inRestoration drama; ated on stage with (usually Italian) luxury in John Vanbrugh's The Relapse (1696) and high life, a character called Sodome "old Sodom" as he is known requests the appearing in Cosmo Manuche's The Loyal hero's sexual favors as a reward for his Lovers as late as 1652. John Marston's The complicity. Herepresents a new trend, for Turk (1610) contains an outspoken scene in the eighteenth century the flamboyant between the erotic tourist Bordello and fop character, like the audience itself, un- his page Pantofle. In William Davenant's derwent a process of embourgeoisement. Albovine (1629), the Lombard hero has The fop was shown as an overreaching a minion, and in his The Cruel Brother member of the middle class, usually a (1630), theDuke of Siena cherishes a favor- simpering "molly," more distinctly a ite who "in his love . . ./ He holdeth thus denizen of a subculture than his predeces- in his hes,in fearful1 care/ Not to bruse sors. The molly's first stage appearance you with his deere embracements." may be the "nice fellow" Maiden "who After the Restoration of the values himself upon his Effeminacies," Stuarts and the introduction of actresses in Thomas Baker's comedy Tunbridge- on the English stage, the heterosexual Walks; or, The Yeoman of Kent (1703), ingredient became more realistic in com- believed by his contemporaries to be a edy, more idealistic in tragedy, though portrait of the author's former behavior. without entirely ousting the competition. Other examples are Varnish and Bardach 4 THEATRE AND DRAMA in Kensington Gardens (17201by the actor attributed to Bussy-Rabutin, Le Comte de John Leigh; the much-imitated Fribble in Guice, described as a "gentilhomme de la DavidGarricklsAMissin HerTeens(1747); manchette" is finally converted to hetero- "The Daffodils" in Garrick's The Male- sexuality; similarly, in Les Plaisirs du Coquette (1757); and Jessamy in Isaac cloitre, sapphic flagellation gives way to Bickerstaffe's Lionel and Clarissa (1768). ordinary love-making. A later parody of A spate of pamphlets and articles about these works, Les Esprits des moeurs au similar"softgent1emen" suggest that these XVIIZ6 sidcle, attributed to Charles de types did not exaggerate real life models by Nerciat, presents a graphic scene of les- much. Within the theatrical community, bian lovemaking. The French acting pro- a number of homosexual figures were con- fession harbored many deviants: the great spicuous, among them Leigh (1689-1726) tragedienne Frangoise Raucourt presided himself. Of the boy-actors who continued over a lesbian secret society, the Anandry- to play women into the Restoration pe- nes; the harlequin Carlo Bertinazzi riod, Edward Kynaston (1643-1712) was (1713-1783)) admired by Garrick for his accused by Dryden of being the Duke of eloquent back, had a liaison with the Buckingham's catamite; and James Nokes married actor Favart. The handsome (d. 16961, who played the title role in 'Tlhe young actor Fleury (Abraham-Joseph Be- Maid of the Mill (1660) and later kept a nard, 1750-1822), was said to be kept by toyshop, was castigated in the Satyr on the the Venetian ambassador at an annual Players as "This B[ugger] Nokes, whose pension of eight thousand pounds; he had unwieldy T[arse]/ Weeps to be buryed in a declared admirer in Prince Henry of his Foreman's A[rse]." Later, the popular Pmssia, Frederick the Great's homose- comedian Samuel Foote (1720-1 7771, who xual brother. often played old women, was tried and Europe from the End of the Old acquitted for sodomy with his man-ser- Regime to World War I. From its incep- vant. IntheRegency period, apost-mortem tion, the most prominent figures in the revealed the actress and prostitute Eliza German theatre were unabashed ped- Edwards (1814-18331 to have been a male erasts, starting with the classical actors transvestite. August Wilhelm Iffland (1759-1 8 14) and French Theatre. When Mme. de Wilhelm Kunst (Kunze, 1799-18591, both Maintenon, the morganatic wife of Louis muchvaluedby Goethe. Someof thegreat- XIV, requested the archbishop of Paris to est Germandramatists are believed to have follow the example of Cromwell's parlia- had similar propensities which nourished ment and order the closing of the French their works: Friedrich von Schiller theatres, he resisted by pointing out that (1759-1805) left behind anunfinished play, the stage, with its heterosexual concerns, Die Malteser (The Knights of Malta, prevented the spread of "unnatural vice." 1794-18031, whose Crequi and St. Priest Under the French Regency (1715-23), a exhibit homophilic feelings; August von number of private pornographic theatres Kotzebue's (1761-1819) tendency to lach- were maintained by the noblesse, but rymose sentimentality rather than sensu- homosexual activities were rarely shown; ality in his portrayal of love may be attrib- anexception was the private theatre of the uted to his nature. The tastes of Heinrich Duchesse de Villeroi, where lesbian come- von Kleist and the Austrian Franz Grill- dies performed by Opera dancers ended in parzer (1791-1872), on the other hand, are orgies. One of the erotic authors, Charles not demonstrated in their dramatic works. Colle (1709-17831, planned a vaudeville In Vogtland, a workers' neighborhood in based on 'lthosegentlemen," but gaveit up northern Berlin, the Nationaltheater was allegedly because he could find no rhyme known before it burned in 1883 as the for bougre. In La Comtesse d'olonne, playhouse of homosexuals, who included THEATRE AND DRAMA 9 its manager, the "last romantic" star of twenty." Wilde's Salome (1893, prod. Hermann Hendrichs (1809-1 871), the tra- 1896)had an influence on the usually reti- gediennes Clara Ziegler (1844-1909) and cent AndrC Gide; Saul (1903, prod. 1922), Felicita Vestvali (Anne Marie Stegemann, set in the BiblicaI time of David and Jon- 1829-1880), both of whom played Romeo, athan, was his only theatrical paean to an and, among the patrons, Prince Georg of older man's passion for a younger. Prussia and J. B. Schweitzer, president of Scandinavia's most illustrious the All-German Workers1 Union. Later, homosexual author, the Danish novelist the Viktoriatheater rightfully inherited Herman Bang (1857-1912), though deeply its reputation. Josef Kains (1858-1910), involved in the theatre, was not an out- the great leading man of Wilhelmine standing dramatist. He founded the first classical theatre, was, at the age of 27, the Norwegian artistic cabaret (inChristiania, final favorite of Ludwig I1 of Bavaria. now Oslo, 1892), worked in Paris at the Simon Karlinsky has argued con- experimental ThCitre de llOeuvre in 1894 vincingly for the homosexuality of Rus- as "scenic instructor," and was director at sian playwrights Nikolai Vasilevich theFolketheater, Copenhagen, 1898-190 1. Gogol(1809-18521, whose fear of women Despite his insignificance as a play- perspires through his comedies, and wright, his intimacy with drama deeply Vladislav Aleksandrovich Ozerov (1770- influenced the prose style of his outsider 1816), whose verse tragedy Dmitrij Don- novels. The Swede August Strindberg skoj (Dmitry of the Don] (1807) has as a (1849-1912) at the outset of his illustrious subplot the fervent devotion of a page for careerwas led by his complex misogyny to his knight. Homophilic sentiment also introduce evil lesbians as psychic vam- motivates Balzac's melodrama Vautrin pire figures into his writings. In Comrades (1840), banned not for its content but for (1888), a mannish female artist seduces the political satire in its costuming. the hero's wife into a bohemian career; Homosexuality, as it came to be the heroine of Miss Julie (1889) is doomed defined and recognized in the nineteenth because her mother raised her as a boy and century, was not unveiled on stage until thus undermined her feminine intuition the fin-de-sibcle cult of decadence made it for survival; and the two-woman one-act modish. A leading star of the Parisian The Stronger (18891reflected the author's theatre of that period was the flamboyant own insecurities about his wife's women- Romanian Edouard de Max (1869-1925) friends. Strindberg's later historical dra- who, according to Gide, nursed a lifelong mas about Queen Christina (1901) and desire to play Nero, Henri 111, and Heli- Gustav 111 (1902) touch glancingly on their ogabalus; a play about him was written by protagonists' sexual nature, the Queen AndrC Boussac de Saint-Marc: Sardana- shown to be repelled by the idea of mar- pale ( 1926). riage (a common enough distaste in Oscar Wilde's aphoristic come- Strindberg). The modem Swedish play dies can be seen as manifestations of a Night of the Tribades (1975) by Per Olof camp sensibility, and some critics have Enquist (b. 1934) caused a sensation by speculated that the Bunburying of the exploring Strindberg's tortured awareness heroes of The Importance of Being Earnest that his first wife was having an affair (1895)stands for sub rosa excursions into with another woman. the gay demi-monde. Lytton Strachey A lyrical treatment of the male interpreted the main character of A eros was proffered by the Russian poet Woman of No Importance (18931 as "a Mikhail Afanasievich Kuzmin; several of wicked Lord, staying in a country house, his plays, including A Dangerous Precau- who has made up his mind to bugger one of tion (1907) and The Venetian Madcaps the other guests-a handsome young man (19121, vaunt the love of two men over O THEATRE AND DRAMA that of a man and a woman. The first or a strong-man like Michelangelo as professed contemporary gay protagonist models. in drama is the title character of Armory- Fuchs' wish went unanswered. Dauriac's comedy Le Monsieur aux Herbert Hirschberg's Fehler (Faults, 1906) chrysanthbmes (1908; the title parodies also belonged to the school of problem La Dame aux camel2ias),which satirized drama. In his "tragedy of sex" Priihlingser- the popularity of elegant homosexuals in wachen (Spring's Awakening, 1891, prod. society. Deviant characters crop up occa- 1906)) Frank Wedekind (1864-1918) in- sionally in modernist Italian and Spanish cluded a vignette of teenage homoeroti- drama-Lorenzaccio in Sem Benelli's La cism amid his spectrum of pubescent Maschera di Bruto (The Mask of Brutus, anxieties, but again the play's catastrophe 1908) and the King in Antonio Buero- was the result of social attitudes. He Vallejo's Isabela, reina de corazones (Isa- came closer to offering an inner conflict bel, Queen of Hearts). Sholom Asch's with the Countess Geschwitz, afull-length Yiddishmelodrama GottfunNekoma (God portrait of an obsessed tribade in Erdgeist of Vengeance, prod. 1907),with its saving (Earth Spirit, 1898, prod. 1902) and Die love between a lesbian prostitute and a Buchse der Pandoras (Pandora'sBox, 1904, brothel-keeper's innocent daughter, cre- prod. 1906). ated no great frisson when produced in After World War1.The liberation Europe, but raised a howl of execration in from Victorian values felt after World War New York in 1922. I was reflected in the theatre as well. Ex- Germany was perhaps the first pressionist drama often used adolescent European nation to treat homosexuality homosexuality as a metaphor for youthful frankly, though as a psychic catastrophe, rebellion, morbidity, and confusion, as in on the modern stage. Usually historic Arnolt Bronnen's Vatermord (Parricide, subject matter justified its introduction, 1922), Klaus Mann's Anja und Esther in plays about Hadrian (Frederiksen, Paul (1925), and Ferdinand Bruckner's Heyse), Saul (Wolfskehl), and Frederick Krankheit der jugend (The Disease of the Great (Burchard],or else the play was Youth, 1926). Bruckner's Die Verbrecher based on ancient myth (Elisir von (Criminals, 1928) included an attack on Kupffeis Narkissos) or on stage conven- the infamous Paragraph 175 of the penal tion (Karl von Levetzowfs pantomime Die code. Bertolt Brecht's early plays, Baal beiden Pierrots [The Two Pierrots]]. As a (19221, Im Dickicht der Stidte (In the "problem" of modem society, homosexu- Jungle of Cities, 19241, Edward I1 ( 1924), ality appears disguised as the decadent and even Die Dreigroschen Oper (The clown Edi in Hermann Bahr's Die Mutter Threepenny Opera, 1928), are filled with (The Mother, 1891) and undisguised as erotic male-bonding, partly derived from the tormented youth Rudolf in Ludwig Rimbaud. An amateur group, the Theater Dilsner's jasminbliithen (Jasmine Blos- des Eros, existed between 1921 and 1924 to soms, 1899),who is one of the first of many perform outspoken homosexual libera- to find his way out of the dilemma by tion dramas in private homes. shooting himself. As early as 1902, the Christa Winsloe's Gestern und critic Hanns Fuchs was complaining that Heute (Mridchen in Uniform, 1930)) the denouements of such plays depended filmed and widely revived outside Ger- too much on the state of the laws: "the many, presented a girlsf-schoolcrush in a ideal homosexual drama, depicting the tragic light, but put the blame squarely on conflicts in an individual soul and their old-fashioned values. Throughout the influence on its action and conception of 1920s, in fact, tragedy was the standard life of homosexuals, is still to be written." dramatic mode for lesbianism. In France, He suggested a dreamer like Grillparzer Edouard Bourdet (1887-1945) treated up- THEATRE AND DRAMA O per-class gay males comically in La Fleur less consistent in its bans than was the de pois (The Upper Crust, 1932), but im- Lord Chamberlain's Office in London; still, bued lesbian attraction with dire conse- British drama managed to sneak in the quences in La PrisonniGre (The Captive, occasional reference. Precious chamber 1926). (Its plot had a foreruner in Catulle plays like Ronald Firbank's mePrincess Mendks' Protectrices, a pale epigone in Zoubaroff (1920) circulated only among Roger Martin du Card's Tacitume, 1931, the cognoscenti; but in 1925, Arnold Ben- and a German counterpart in Hermann nett could find the opening scene of Freder- Sudermann's Die Freundin, 1913114.) ick Lonsdale's Spring Cleaning, a gather- Federico Garcia Lorca may have ing of homosexuals at a cocktail party, the channeled his own predilections into the only genuine thing in the play. That same repressed sexuality of his major tragedies, year, a sentimental attachment formed in for he puts his praise of masculine beauty a prison-camp was made central to J. R. in the mouths of his trammelled hero- Ackerley's The Prisoners of War; and to- ines. More explicit are his early poetic ken homosexuals also made an appear- drama Dialogo del Amargo (The Bitter ance in Ronald Mackenzie's Musical One's Dialogue], in which a young man Chairs (1931).The Green Bay Tree (1933) with a death wish is seduced by the horse- by Mordaunt Shairp (1887-1939)) a melo- man Muerte who offers him his highly drama about an epicene older man's hold symbolic knives; and the suppressed sur- on a languid youth, made a success, re- realistic play El public0 (The Audience, peated, with some changes, on Broadway. 1930; not published until 1976). Schoolboy crushes, familiar to much of This convention that passion was the audience, surfaced in The Hidden Years tragic, but behavioral characteristics (1948) by Travers Otway and Quaint comic, was maintained in the United Honour (1949)by Roger Gellert in more or States. The very first American drama of lesscovert form. It is typical that England's homophilic despair, Henry Blake Fuller's two favorite authors of comedies and "closet" (in both senses) one-act At Saint musicals, Noel Coward (1899-1973) and Judas's (1896),ends with the suicide of the Ivor Novello (Daniel Davies, 1893-1 95 1)) best man reviled by the beloved (straight] whose sexual orientation was common bridegroom. Mae West's The Drag (1927), knowledge in theatrical circles, remained which devoted a whole act to a transves- closeted to the general public; the campi- tite ball, and Pleasure Man (1928))which ness of their works was put down to filled the stage with hilarious dishing "sophistication." The same held true for queens, both had tragic endings tacked on. such important playwrights and actors as These plays were prosecuted and banned, Somerset Maugham, Terence Rattigan whereas Lillian Hellman's ambivalent (1911-1 9771, Michael Redgrave (1908- melodrama of calumny and suppressed 1985), Charles Laughton (1899-1962), desire, The Children's Hour (1934))won Emlyn Williams (1905-1987)) Esme Percy critical acclaim. The leading dramatic (1887-19571, Ernest Milton (1890-1974), actresses of the New York stage, Eva Le GwenFfrangcon-Davies (b. 1896),and John Gallienne (b. 1889), Katharine Cornell Gielgud (b. 1904) (even after Gielgud had (1893-1974), and Lynn Fontanne (1887- been arrested forpublicindecency), as well 1983), were known privately for the inti- as for the powerful producer Hugh "Binkiel' macy of their female friendships; the last Beaumont (1908-1973) and the influential two married gay men, Guthrie McClintic critic James Agate (1877-1942). At the end (1893-1961) and Alfred Lunt (1893-1977)) of his career, Coward, who had put a cho- respectively. rus of "pretty boys, witty boys" wearing Broadway was somewhat ham- green carnations into Bitter Sweet (1929) strung by police censorship, which was and hinted at a bisexual triangle in Design 9 THEATRE AND DRAMA forliving (1933), ventured a bit more frank- sidered it unsuitable for public perform- ness in A Songat 7'wilight (19661, ostensi- ance by boys. bly based on Maugham and Max Beer- New Opennessin the Sixties. The bohm; Rattigan also made the exploita- drag-ballscenein John Osborne'splay about tion of a pederast central to his late play the Austrian spy Alfred Redl, A Patriot for Man and Boy (1963). William Douglas Me (1965), proved one of the nails in the Home (b. 1912) is a mainstream play- coffin of official British censorship, whose wright who has been willing to deal with demands for cuts showed up its absurdity. the taboo subject throughout his career, Joe Orton was another strain for it, for, from his prison play Now Barrabbas like Wilde, his sense of paradox and sly (1947),to his comedy about a transsexual, verbal innuendo informed all his work, Aunt Edwina (1960),to his drama David making it not so easy to cut offending and lonathan (1984). passages: Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1964), When the Nazis came to power with its bisexual protagonist, the amoral in Germany, the leading man Adolf male couple in Loot (1966),and the poly- Wohlbruck (1900-1966) had to flee to morphous perversity of the entire cast of England, where he became known as What the Butler Saw (1969) could not be Anton Walbrook; so did Conrad Veidt, neutralized by excision. His camp sensi- who eventually wound up in Hollywood. bility led him to include arcane references Less lucky colleagues perished in the within standard farce set-ups, couched in camps. The immensely popular Gustav impeccably elegant utterance; and his Griindgens (1899-1963) was forced to successes emboldened him, in rewriting marry and suppress his propensities to his radio play The Ruffian on the Stair for retain the favor of his masters; after the the stage in 1967, to strengthen the sexual war, he persisted as the leading director bond between the two male characters. and classical actor in West Germany, but Three plays of the 1966167season his survival tactics were attacked by his continued the tradition of homosexual as former friend Klaus Mann in the novel lonely outsider: Frank Marcus' (b. 1928) Mephisto. cruel lesbian comedy The Killing of Sister After World War II. During the George, Charles Dyer's (b. 1928) bleak post-war period, the French theatre was duet Staircase, and ChristopherHamptonls dominated by Jean Cocteauls circle, in- (b. 1946) examination of adolescent cluding the stage designer Christian alienation, When Did You Last See My BCrard (1902-1 949) and the actor Jean Mother! Hampton's next play, Total Marais (b. 1913);the bisexual GCrardPhil- Eclipse (1968),was a skillful exploration of ipe (1922-1959) was everyone's favorite the RimbaudIVerlaine relationship. At leading man. The foremost members of least one homosexual was to be found as the ComCdie Frangaise, such as Jean Weber local color in performances by Joan and Jacques Charon (1920-19751, were Littlewood's group (A Taste of Honey by familiar faces at gay salons. Julien Green's ShelaghDelaney and The Hostage byhen- monumental Sud (South, 1953) clothed dan Behan, both 1958).The plays of Peter his doomed love story in Civil War garb Shaffer (b. 19269, beginning with Five Fin- and veiled suggestion; the agony of unre- ger Exercise (1958),generally concern the quited affectionwent even deeper inHenry uneasy relationship between an older man de Montherlantls La Ville dont le Prince and a younger; and Simon Gray (b. 1936) est un Enfant (The City Whose Prince Is a played with pathetic same-sex desires in Child, 1951 ), set in a Catholic school where Wise Child (1967) and Spoiled (1968) be- an obsessive priest roots out the special fore presenting a witty bisexual protago- friendships of the students. Typically, the nist (but one who is abandoned at the end) secretive and suicidal Montherlant con- in Butley (1971).Alan Bennett's (b. 1934) THEATRE AND DRAMA 4 plays have been both more open and more Ballad of the Sad Cafb (1963)and James fun. Purdy's Malcolm (1966)-also seemed In the United States, Tea and intent on glorifying the freakish outsider. Sympathy (1953)by Robert Anderson (b. As homosexual characters proliferated on 19 171 encapsulates a prevalent American the Broadway stage, this critical hostility attitude: the sensitive hero could be cured grew until, in the mid- and late 1960s, such of his reputation as a sissy by the love of a widely read pundits asstanley Kauffmann, good woman. The stage image of the Walter Kerr, and Robert Brustein were homosexual as outrageous fairy or doomed positing a homosexual conspiracy in the psychotic was challenged by Ruth and American theatre, which "often poisons Augustus Goetz' adaptation of Gide's The what you see and hear." They argued that Immoralist (1954);imperfect in its reason- homosexual playwrights camouflaged ing, it nevertheless presented a man with their concerns in the guise of heterosexual homophilic tendencies as intelligent and relationships; also implicit was the fear sympathetic. It was, however, less signifi- that show business was in the hands of cant than the prominence of Tennessee perverts, from costumers and choreogra- Williams in the American theatre. In phers to producers. A decade later this Williams' early drama, explicit homosexu- paranoia was echoed in Canada, where the ality remained marginal; the flashback into actor John Colicos complained "the fag- Blanche's marriage in Streetcar Named gots have taken over." Desire (19471, the Baron de Charlus epi- Canada was the breeding-ground sode in Camino Real (1953), and the les- for John Herbert's (b. 1926) harsh play of bian undercurrent in Something Unspo- prison life, Fortune and Men's Eyes (19671, ken (1958).It became more crucial as the which pivots on the sexual politics of hidden motivation in Cat on a Hot Tin the cell-block; and the Quebec play- Roof (1955)and the central secret in Sud- wright Michel Tremblay (b. 19421, with denly Last Summer (1958))but in a stan- his drag-queen soap operas La duchesse de dard mode: the protagonists are both vic- Langeais (1969)and Hosanna (1973).Trem- tims, of desires suppressed and expressed, blay, a master of local patois, was also respectively. Inlater plays like Small Craft influenced by the French thief-turned- Warnings (1972) with its transvestite prose-stylist Jean Genet, whose dramas, husband, and Vieux Carrb (19771, the types although they explore the mysteries of are grotesque but the motives are some- personality, are less explicitly homoerotic what less disguised. than his novels. His first play, Les Bonnes Such themes remained covert in (TheMaids, 1947),did not get the all-male William Inge (The Boy in the Basement, cast Genet desired in its premiere produc- 1962, Natural Affection, 1963) and Ed- tion, but since then the two sister-maids ward Albee (although TheZoo Story, 1959, and their mistress have frequently been is cryptic only to those who cannot spot played by men. Similarly, Herbert's play one of its two characters). This did not may owe something to Genet's Haute Sur- stop hostile critics from declaring that veillance (Death Watch, 1949)) a more Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf! (1962) oblique and lyrical treatment of sexual was really about two gay male couples. subservience in confinement. Albee's savage hostility to the nuclear The American critics' demand for family struck them as symptomatic of a homosexual honesty in packaging was perverted imagination; they were outraged answered by Mart Crowley's [b. 1935)The by the musky and enigmatic eroticism of Boys in the Band (1968);drenched in self- Tiny Alice (which one claimed was gay pity, predictable in its stereotypes, carry- slang for the rectum). Albee's choice of ing on the tradition of the deviant as vic- fiction to dramatize- Carson McCullersl tim of his own deviance, it nevertheless 4 THEATRE AND DRAMA presented a half-world independent of Fierstein's only popular success since was heterosexual concerns. Its commercial his libretto for Jerry Herman's (b. 1933) success, which opened the flood-gates to musical comedy version of La Cage aux similar confessional dramas, was due in Folles (1983))which coarsened an already part to its confirming the general public in simplistic sitcom to suit the tired busi- the view that such a life was emotionally nessman. barren. Although Boys in the Band did Heterosexual playwrights like include a campy sissy in its roster, at least David Rabe and David Mamet seemed it eschewed the drag queen who remained unable togct beyond the notion that same- a constant in drama of this period [Lanford sex affection spelled doom, a collapse of Wilson's Madness of Lady Bright, 1964; personality. Meanwhile, homosexual Frederick Combs' The Children's Mass, dramatists were moving beyond such 1973). A rash of commercial farces erup- clichCs. It is noteworthy that Robert Pat- ted, using the homosexual as a trendy rickandLanford Wilson [bothb. 1937)first type in the hackneyed comic situations; gained recognition on the New York stage in the West End, Spitting Image (1966) in 1964 with oppressed characters: the by Colin Spencer (b. 1933)presented a gay obsessed older man in Patrick's The couple about to have a baby; in New York, Haunted Host and the suicidal drag queen Norman, Is That You! (1972)by Ron Clark in Wilson's The Madness of Lady Bright. [b. 1933) and Sam Bobrick (b. 1932) and After treating other themes for more than Steambath (1971)by Bruce Jay Friedman a decade, they then took a less hysterical (b. 1930) exploited coming-out and cruis- approach to the subject: Patrick in ing areas for their crude cartoons. [The Kennedy's Children (1973)offered ahomo- British critic Kenneth Tynan noted that sexual as a type of his times, and by 1983 Broadway humor derived exclusively from was writing specifically for gay audiences Jews and homosexuals.) in such plays as Blue Is for Boys. Wilson The "Liberated" Seventies. In matured to present homosexual relation- Paris, the phenomenally successfulLa Cage ships and characters as natural features of aux Folles (Cage of Queens, 1972)by Jean the American landscape in The Fifth of Poirier ran for four years, its popularity Iuly (1978) and Burn This (1987). Simi- also due to its reinforcing misconceptions larly, Albert Innaurato (b. 1948) could with broad caricatures of glamor drag balance his obese and pathetic freak in The queens, ghettoized in a showbiz setting. Transfiguration of Benno Blimpie (1977) (Whenthe actor Michel Serrault was asked with a humorous, boy-next-door seduc- how he dared go on in net stockings and tion in Gemini (1977). ostrich-boa at his age, he explained that he It was the "worthiness" and put a spot of red on his nose, and so was not remoteness of the subject and the fami- playing a homosexual but a clown in drag.) liarity of its treatment which dictated how Gay dramatists attempted to in- the general public would react to plays fuse the boulevard farcewithinsider knowl- about gay life. Bent (1978)by Martin Sher- edge, as in A. J. Kronengold's Tub Strip man, an overwrought picture of persecu- (1973))James Kirkwood's (1930-1989) P.S. tion in Nazi Germany, couched in the Your Cat Is Dead (1975), and Terrence prose of Masterpiece Theatre, was McNallyls (b. 1939) The Ritz (1975). But acclaimed; Forty-Deuce (1981.) by Alan the drag queen remained the favored pro- Bowne, a much more authentic and origi- tagonist, cropping up again in Torch Song nal piece of work concerning the teenaged Trilogy (1983),three plays by Harvey Fier- hustlers and their johns who hang out stein which were evolved in a gay theatre around Times Square, was reviled. Black and then transferred successfully to Broad- American playwrights tended to define way to win a Tony Award. Significantly, homosexuality as a decadent white threat THEATRE AND DRAMA + to theirvirility. The work of Imamu Amiri of Nola Noonan, Goddess and Star (19671, Baraka (LeRoi Jones, b. 1934) grew more and the scenarist Ronald Tavel (b. 1941) homophobic as his political radicalism with the jungle extravaganza Gorilla increased: The Toilet (1964))a self-styled Queen (1966). An important hothouse "play about love," seems to sanction the was John Vaccaro's Theater of the Ridicu- embrace of the white "queer" and the lous, which forged one major talent in black youth, yet Baraka's public state- the person of Charles Ludlam (1940-1987). ments have attacked homosexuals vio- The basic technique of the Ridiculous style lently. James Baldwin ( 1924-1 987)) exco- was pastiche, trashing Western civiliza- riated by the radical black community for tion by mingling high culture and popular "collaboration," never ventured on a the- totems, and lacing it all with genital humor atrical equivalent of Giovanni's Room. Ed and gender switches. Ludlam's plays, be- Bullins (b. 19351, who portrayed a stere- ginning with When Queens Collide otypical "bull dyke" in Clara's Ole Man (19671,and culminatingin his own Ridicu- (19651, boasted that his directors were not lous Theatrical Company (Bluebeard, "twisted and trying to find the latest fad 1970; The Grand Tarot, 1971; Camille, that the faggots are trying to make a new 1973; Stage Blood, 1974, etc.) werevirtual Hair out of." palimpsests, shrewdly inlaying classical The reference was to the "hippie" allusions and quotations into pop art. A musical Hair (1967)) which, with the consummate comedian, best known for pseudo-sophisticated revue Oh! Calcutta! his portrayals of Marguerite Gautier and (19691, presented unorthodox sexual prac- Galas (a monster diva based on Callas), tices as natural variants; but the notion of Ludlam was surrounded by lesser talents homosexual as villain persisted even in a whose ineptitude made its own comment counter-culture phenomenon like the rock on the aspirations of the professional the- musical Iesus Christ Superstar (by An- atre. His influence is strong on such an drew Lloyd Webber, 1971): the disciple epigone as Charles Busch (b. 1955], whose who loves Christ most ardently turned out Vampire Lesbians of Sodorn (1985) and to be Judas, and Herod is played as a se- Psycho Beach Party (1987) are less cul- quined screamer. Exclusively gay musi- tured, less threatening, and thereforemore cals could not redress the balance: A1 accessible than Ludlam's work. Carmines' (b. 1936) The Faggot (19731, In the wake of the political events meant as a populist and ecumenical plea of 1968, feminist and gay liberation poli- for love, was scorned by activists for stere- tics gave rise to a number of agitprop otyping, and the novelties Boy Meets Boy groups, and by the mid-1970s, theatre (by Bill Solly and Donald Ward, 1975)and collectives and "coming-out" plays bur- Lovers (1975)enjoyed no particular shelf- geoned. In London, Gay Sweatshop, organ- life. However, The Rocky Horror Show ized by Ed Berman in 1975, staged (19733 by Richard OIBrien,especially in its lunchtime bills of short plays dealing with cult film avatar, revealed how familiar identity, censorship, and relationships; the psychopathia sexualis had become to a actors were professionals, many of whom, youthful mass public. such as Simon Callow and Anthony Sher More vital was the explosion of (both b. 19491, were to become highly "low camp" transvestitic theatre that articulate luminaries of the establish- emerged from New York's underground, ment stage. In 1977, the Sweatshop di- in tandem with Andy Warhol's Factory. vided into men's and women's groups, the Characteristically, the earliest of these latter tending to revue-like formats. In playwrights were Warhol hangers-on: the Holland, the Rooie Flikkers (or The Soft- transvestite actor Jackie Curtis (b. 1947) ies] became prominent. with Glamour, Glory and Gold: The Life ** THEATRE AND DRAMA

New York counterparts likes Developments in World Theatre. TOSOS (TheOther Side of the Stage, New Australia, perhaps because of its willfully York, 1972-771 and the Stonewall Theater macho image, tended to dramatize homo- were both more polemical and less profes- sexual life in transvestite terms, equating sional in their achievements; they devel- the gay male with the drag queen. The oped their own playwrights, such as Doric best-known examples are Peter Kenna's Wilson (b. 1939))William M. Hoffman (b. (b. 19301 Mates (19751, whose catalytic 19391, Philip Blackwell and Arch Brown, character is yet another depressed and who preached to the converted, but pro- depressive nightclub performer; and Steve vided a sense of cultural solidarity. Jon- J. Spears' (b. 1951.)The Elocution of Ben- athanKatzl docudrama Coming Out! (1975) jamin Franklin (19761, a one-character supplied a useful history lesson for the tragi-comedy of a middle-aged cross-dresser newly aware. The Glines Theater (founded who gets too close to a student and ends up 1976)nurturedtalentslikeFierstein, whose all but lobotomized. A Gay Theater early work, such as Flatbush Tosca (19751, Company was formed inSydney in 1979 to made comment through reductive com- present a more balanced picture of the edy; and the gifted Jane Chambers (1937- varieties of homosexual experience. 19831, whose Last Summer at Bluefish Outside the English-speaking Cove (1980)has become a staple in lesbian world, homosexuality has not played a theatre. The proliferation of similar pre-eminent part in mainstream drama. groups in other cities led to the creation of Even Mishima (1925-1970) did not choose a Gay Theater Alliance in 1978 to provide to treat it, although his own sado-maso- a network. Gender-fuck troupes like The chistic penchants surface in his Kabuki Cockettes and the Angels of Light in San play The Drawn-Bow Moon (1969), in Francisco and Centola and theHot Peaches, whichanalzed samuraiis tortured on stage. another Warhol-sponsored enterprise, in In Germany, Martin Sperr's (b. 1941) New Yorlz, combined shock tactics, high Jagdszenen aus Niederbayern (Hunting camp, glitter rock, and reverse glamor to Scenes from Lower Bavaria, 19661, show- achieve their effects. They have been suc- ing a young mechanic destroyed by his ceeded by less strident, more recondite narrow-minded provincial community, performance artists lilze Tim Miller and created a stir and was filmed. The Ger- Holly Hughes. man-language theatre, on the whole, Lesbian Troupes. A score of les- seemed to equate homosexuality with bian ensembles quickly sprang up in the violence. The Austriandramatist Wolfgang wake of feminist theatre groups, among Bauer (b. 1941) in Magic Afternoon (1968) them the Lavender Cellar in Minneapolis had two layabouts indulge in kissing to (founded 19731, the Red Dylze Theater torment a young woman, and in Change in Atlanta (founded 19741, and the Les- (1969)a gay art-dealer has his face shoved bian-Feminist Theater Collective of Pitts- in broken glass. In Bodo Strauss' Der Park burgh (founded 1977).Although they pro- (The Park, 19851, Cyprian, the type of the duced plays by Chambers, Pat Surcicle creative artist, is brutally murdered by the ' (Prisons, 1973J, and the poetic imagist Joan black park-attendant he fancies. Rainer Schenltar, their repertories, as in England, Fassbinder used his films more than his emphasized satiric revue. This was espe- plays to express his concepts of social and cially the case at the WOW Cafe in New interpersonal exploitation. York's East Village, founded by Lois Weaver Although Parisian audiences and Peggy Shaw in 1982; Alice Forrester's flocked to a boulevard farce lilze La Cage subversive parody Heart of the Scorpion auxFolles, a more select public has appre- and Holly Hughes' self-regarding satire ciated the absurdist plays of Argentinian- The Well of Horniness (both 1985) were born Copi: he has played in his own worlts, typical offerings. THEBES 9 such as Le homosexuel ou La difficult6 de THEBES s'exprimer (TheHomosexual or The Diffi- Site of the Mycenean citadel of culty of Self-Expression,197 1) and LeFrigo Cadmus [legendary personification of the (The Fridge, 1983). The Soviet theatre, Semitic peoples of the East), Thebes was reflecting its society, has diligently avoided the capital of Boeotia in central Greece in the subject; productions of Williams' classical times. Streetcar and Ronald Harwood's The The Theban cycle, celebrated by Dresser, for instance, cut all allusions to Sophocles and otherwriters, offers several homosexuality. In Italy, on the other hand, salient erotic themes. Cadmus' descen- the fashionable theatre and opera have dent Laius, warned by an oracle that his been dominated by elegant director- son would slay him, forewent sex with his designers like Luchino Visconti and his wife Jocasta. Unaware of the danger and disciple Franco Zeffirelli (b. 1923). They frustrated, she got him drunk, had inter- were responsible for introducing Williams course with him, and in nine months and Albee to Italy, but their flamboyant produced the infant Oedipus, whom he wielding of high style was often vitiated ordered to be exposed. Laius was then by a penchant for garish melodrama and exiled to the Peloponesus. Exclaiming maudlin sentimentality. "nature compels me," he then raped Chry- The AIDS crisis has spawned a sippus, his host's 12-year old son, causing number of nonce dramas, modern versions a curse to follow him to his Thebes when of the problem play, where the message is he returned. Oedipus, saved by a shepherd, more important than the medium: Larry grew to manhood, slew his father whom Kramer's The Normal Heart, William M. he did not recognize in distant parts, and Hoffman's As Is, Rebecca Ranson's War- came to Thebes. Here he ended the plague, ren, Robert Chesley's Night Sweat, and married the widowed Jocasta, and sired the Theater Rhinoceros' dramatic collage children by her to begin a new round of The AIDS Show (all 1985).They affected tragedies including the execution of his the audiences that sought them out, but daughter Antigone by her uncle Cleon for when they entered the reportory of re- burying her rebel brother. gional theatres, subscribers often stayed After Crete and Sparta, from away, refusing to confront the problem of which institutionalized pederasty was "others." AIDS also had an impact on the imported about 600 B.c., Thebes became theatre by decimating its ranks, its vic- the place Greeks most often named as the tims including Ludlam and the locus for the formalized of pederasty. In director-choreographer Michael Bennett Plators Laws, the Athenian declares that (1943-1987), along with dozens of rank- in Elis and Boeotia (including Thebes) and-file members of the profession. The they practiced pederasty uninhibitedly, glaring gaps left in the performing arts by each adult male living together with the these deaths reveal how dependent they boy he loved. The greatest pederastic poet, have been on homosexual talent. Pindar, resided in Thebes. When Alexan- der the Great destroyed the rebel city, he BIBLIOGRAPHY. Stefan Brecht, Queer left Pindar's house standing to demon- Theatre, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978; Kaier Curtin, WeCan Always strate his love of culture. After Sparta and Call Them Bulgarians': The Emergence Athens exhausted each other in the great of Lesbians and Gay Men on the Peloponnesian War, Pelopidas and Epami- American Stage, Boston: Alyson, 1987; nondas, in exile in Athens, formed an aris- Terry Helbing, Gay Theuter Alliance tocratic conspiracy to liberate their city. Directory of Gay Plays, New York: JH Press, 1980. Bravely surprising the Spartan Laurence Senelick garrison, they organized the Sacred Band