Forbidden Acts: Pioneering Gay & Lesbian Plays of the 20th Century / Edition 1

by Ben Hodges

Overview

(Applause Books). Applause Theatre & Cinema Books is proud to announce the publication of the first collected anthology of gay and lesbian plays from the entire span of the twentieth century, sure to find wide acceptance by general readers and to be studied on campuses around the world. Among the ten plays, three are completely out of print. Included are The God of Venegeance (1918) by Sholom Ash, the first play to introduce lesbian characters to an English-language audience; Lillian Hellman's classic The Children's Hour (1933), initially banned in London and passed over for the Pulitzer Prize because of its subject matter; and Oscar Wilde (1938) by Leslie and Sewell Stokes, a major award-winning success that starred Robert Morley. More recent plays include Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band (1968), the first hit "out" gay play that was the most realistic and groundbreaking portrayal of gays on stage up to that time; Martin Sherman's Bent (1978), which daringly focused on the love between two Nazi concentration camp inmates and starred Richard Gere; William Hoffman's As Is (1985), which was one of the first plays to deal with the AIDS crisis and earned three Tony Award nominations; and Terrence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994), which starred Nathan Lane and won the Tony Award for Best Play. The other plays are Edouard Bourdet's The Captive (1926), Ruth and Augustus Goetz's The Immoralist (1954) and Frank Marcus' The Killing of Sister George (1967). Forbidden Acts includes a broad range of theatrical genres: drama, tragedy, romance, comedy and farce. They remain vibrant and relevant today as a testament of art's ability to persevere in the face of oppression.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781557835871
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/01/2003
Series:	Applause Books
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	744
Sales rank:	586,634
Product dimensions:	5.88(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.74(d)

About the Author

Ben Hodges is Associate Editor to John Willis on the Tony Honor-winning Theatre World book annual and is the executive producer of the Theatre World Awards. He is also an actor, director and producer, and has worked previously as a casting director for the stage and screen. He currently serves as Managing Director for Fat Chance Productions and the Ground Floor Theatre, a non-profit theatre and film production company in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

In this anthology, Hodges, an actor, producer, and director, shows that the theater has been a powerful force in bringing gays and lesbians out of the closet and into the public's consciousness. The ten selections (all of which have been performed on or off Broadway) share themes of oppression and suppression countered by love, fear, anger, and humor so that the characters come to be seen as universally human-not gay or lesbian. Sholom Asch's The God of Vengence (1918), a Yiddish lesbian romance, was declared obscene by a New York judge and closed down because of a seduction scene in a brothel, while Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour-about two teachers at an all-girls' school in New England-was banned in Boston in 1933. An autobiographical look at his attraction to boys, Andr Gide's The Immoralist hit the New York stage in 1954, featuring Louis Jordan, Geraldine Page, and the young James Dean. The Boys in the Band (1968) was called the "first homosexual play" for its very frank and revealing picture of a group of "queer friends." Bent (1979) is a powerful story of gay love in a Nazi concentration camp. The last two plays, As Is (1985) and Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994), brought the topic of AIDS to the stage. This strong survey of 20th-century gay/lesbian drama is recommended for theater arts and gay/lesbian collections.-Howard Miller, St. Louis Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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