Still Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama [Paperback]

John M. Clum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 17, 2000

Still Acting Gay is a revision and expansion of Clum's celebrated book, Acting Gay. The book focuses on the relationship between American and British dramas written by and about gay men and the changing gay culture those plays reflect, from the carefully enforced closet to liberation politics to AIDS to the qualified security of the present. Still Acting Gay chronicles the transition of the gay man as subject for sensational melodrama to creator of many of the most powerful and celebrated plays of the late 20th century.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This reprint (with some revision and a new chapter) of John Clum's classic 1991 study should be shelved beside Alan Sinfield's Out on Stage (1999) in the library of anyone interested in theater or gay culture. In his introduction to this new edition, Clum offers his work as a "testament to the importance of gay playwrights in the history of American and British theatre," while acknowledging that in the 21st century, the stage no longer holds a central role in gay cultural life, especially for young urban queers: "We're the subjects of serious, gay-created movies. Gay writers and pundits are on chat shows. There are celebrated openly gay rock stars. Which is to say that gay men no longer need to go to the theater to see ourselves and our lives and that gay dramatic writers no longer see the theater as the only medium open to us." Nevertheless, as Clum argues, gay drama of the past 70 years is a good place to look for both sanctioned and unsanctioned representations of homosexual characters and gay life, and perhaps (given the historical association of queers and theater) the best place to trace these changing images. His section on Tennessee Williams (updated here) is especially good, as is his long and celebratory treatment of Tony Kushner's Angels in America. --Regina Marler

Review

“An excellent book . . . It's about time someone dealt with these issues in the theater.” —Rozanne Seelen, Drama Bookshop

“This first major study of homosexuality in modern plays conducts a whirlwind survey of texts...An important study of drama which ought to change thinking, performance, and teaching.” —Library Journal

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; Revised edition (June 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312223846
• ISBN-13: 978-0312223847
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,453,317 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Out of the Closet and on the Stage, January 1, 2004

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Michael S. Waren "schoeder" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Still Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama (Paperback)

Scholar John Clum's critical textual analysis of Gay Theatre, is not a historical account of the plays themselves. In this work, he critically looks at a wide variety of gay plays, some well known others not. In conclusion Clum writes that this type of drama has much wider universality to audiences (both gay and straight) than what is often perceived. A must for scholars of both Theatre and gay studies!