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"Until 1958 the law in Britain forbade the public performance of
any play that dealt openly with homosexuality." "Not in Front of
the Audience" is a pioneering study of a neglected terrain;
examining the way in which the theatres of London and New York have
reflected contemporary social and cultural attitudes to homosexuals
and homosexuality. In the 1920s and 30s the theatre sought to
represent homosexuals as either essentially corrupt, or else
morally pitiful. Paradoxically however, de Jongh argues, no matter
how much homosexual characters were derided and despised, by
refusing to conform they subverted conventional sexual
expectations. The woman with a past, who inspired many late
Victorian melodramas, sought happiness through social acceptance.
The homosexual looked to a future outside the confines of a
conservative heterosexual society. During the Cold War, under the
influence of McCarthysism, homosexuality became perceived as not
only morally reprehensible, but also politically dangerous. Only,
briefly, in the late 60s did the theatres of London and New York
dare to confront the issue of heterosexual prejudice and its
devastating impact upon the lives of gay men and lesbians.
"Not in Front of the Audience" is a pioneering and important study
of a neglected terrain, examining the way in which the theatres of
London and New York have reflected contemporary social and cultural
attitudes to "gay men" and homosexuality. In the 1920s and 1930s
the theatre represented homosexuals as either corrupt, or morally
pitiful. De Jongh argues that no matter how much homosexual
characters were derided and despised, by refusing to conform they
endowed conventional plays with unorthodox perspectives. During the
Cold War, under the influence of McCarthyism, homosexuality was
perceived as not only morally reprehensible but also politically
dangerous and the theatre dutifully reflected such perceptions.
Until 1958, direct discussion or depiction of homosexuality was
banned from the stage in Britain. But by the late 1960s the
theatres of London and New York had begun to confront the issue of
heterosexual prejudice and its devastating impact upon the lives of
gay men and lesbians. In the wake of the AIDS epidemic, the author
concludes, the representation of homosexuality in the theatre has
again become an urgent and highly charged issue. This book should
be of interest to unde
Late on 20th October, 1953, Sir John Gielgud, then at the zenith of
his theatrical career, was arrested in a Chelsea public lavatory.
He pleaded guilty the next day to the charge of persistently
importuning male persons for immoral purposes. In the prim,
homophobic Britain of the 1950s, Gielgud's offence attracted
vicious criticism from public and press alike and threatened to
terminate his career. A few weeks later, however, when Gielgud
opened in London in a new play, something extraordinary happened.
Nicholas de Jongh's Plague Over England is not just a dramatized
account of a scandal. It relates Gielgud's emergency to the
country's political mood and depicts a nation in the grip of a gay
witch-hunt.
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