Research Catalog

Straight acting : popular gay drama from Wilde to Rattigan

Title: Straight acting : popular gay drama from Wilde to Rattigan / Sean O'Connor.
Author: O'Connor, Sean, 1968-
Publication: Washington, DC ; London : Cassell, 1997.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	PR635.H65 O28 1997	Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

ix, 245 pages; 23 cm

Summary

Between the trials of Oscar Wilde in the 1890s and the beginnings of legal reforms in the 1960s, the West End stage was dominated by the work of gay playwrights. In a book that covers both familiar and lesser-known works, Sean O'Connor examines the legacy of Wilde as a playwright and as a gay man, and explores in the works of Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward and Terence Rattigan the resonance of Wilde's agenda for tolerance and his creed of individuality.
O'Connor contextualizes these plays against the enormous social and historical changes of the twentieth century. He also examines the legal restrictions which regulated the personal lives of these writers and required them to evolve sophisticated strategies in order to express on stage, albeit obliquely, their dilemmas as gay men.

Subjects

Contents

Foreword / Simon Watney -- 1. Oscar and After -- 2. Somerset Maugham, Warts and All -- 3. Public Lives, Private Faces -- 4. Sentimental Education -- 5. Brief Encounters -- 6. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

ISBN

0304328669 (hardcover)
0304328642 (pbk.)

LCCN

97013548

OCLC

243568504
ocn243568504

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries