theconversation.com: In today’s theatre industry, you don’t have to look far to find queer representation. Although the theatre has long been seen as an accepting place for LGBTQ+ people, in the 19th century, examples of queer lives from the stage profession are difficult to find.
I’m a theatre historian at the University of Warwick, and for queer history month in February, I worked on retrieving histories of LGBTQ+ men.
5 comments:
As a queer person, I find it quite wonderful to find out that the history of queerness in theater is just as baked in as I always assumed it was. The whole history of women not being alloud on stage, so they had to let the men cross dress, is really pretty hilarious. Especially when people found out the men liked cross dressing too much, and then the government was like oh shit, we accidentally were too accepting, because they were trying to be less accepting of women. It feels like a great example of an inescapable prophecy by creating your own demise, but whatever the case, I’m glad these 1800s men (or perhaps women) found an outlet to express themselves that at least sometimes didn't get them arrested. Hopefully this fun cross dressing in a totally cis way on stage won't have to come back because of this current presidency.
There are few things I love less than theatre and queer history. The intrinsic link between theatre and queerness is a large contributer to my love for this industry. The history of the queer community specifically within theatre is something that I want to learn more about. I am glad that the article did not just touch on Oscar Wilde, although he is known for a reason, but touched on other artists from before the twentieth century. I love how so much of queer history focuses on trans history, specifically within theatre. Theatre being a place of expression focused on telling authentic stories of all humans makes it all the more sense that the queer community is naturally drawn towards it. I did not know about the blackmailing, although I am not surprised, as knowing the history of how minorities have been treated historically in this country. I hope more queer historians focus their efforts on the intersection of theatre and queerness.
This was an extremely fascinating read. I've always been deeply interested in the sort of cultural history of theatre, and how all of our little idiosyncrasies and beliefs can be traced back a lot further than we think. I guess I had never fully understood that in the history of theatre there was a time in which queerness was so frowned upon and so illegal, within the boundaries of the theater itself. Theatre has always seemed so inclusive to me, and such a place where every queer person can feel more safe, that I hadn't ever considered it to be something different. I wonder then, where and when did theater begin to start becoming a place for queer people to come together? It was obviously before the times written in the article, and even in Shakespeare’s canon there are queer elements, although I'm not sure how much of that is a modern queer lens and how much is that Shakespeare’s time was queerer than we typically assume. Going all the way back to the Greeks, there is queerness there as well, but it may very well have been just a completely different societal approach to sexuality and gender.
Queerness has existed forever everywhere, not just western society. As mentioned in the article though, despite its existence, it’s been erased, and is really hard to find. It is really interesting to read about how it has existed not only within the context of a play, but also through the play. I was particularly interested in the theory about the symbolism and code of rings in queer life. Were they used the same way as the handkerchief code? I think there are so many queer parts of history that are overlooked or completely erased. There are so many people and artists that were openly queer at the time but are not talked about, and it’s incredibly disappointing. Art is such a great way to express yourself, and humans have been using it as an expression forever, it’s the perfect medium to leave a mark of queer existence.
This article is a very sobering read to me because though this seems like a problem of the past, in the era of politics that we are now, these issues might just become so so prevalent and relevant again and that is a scary thought. I feel like queer history is such an interesting deep dive because so much of it was never written down for fear of discovery. A lot of politics and arguments about being queer in this day and age are concerning the fact that it is just a “trend” or something that people will get over because they think that this is a new thing when in fact it is not. Being queer has never not existed, queer folks have existed long before there was documentation available and once there was, they kept it hidden and not documented for fear of persecution. It is super interesting to think about the intersection between theatre and queerness because of the play element of theatre and how it is socially acceptable for anyone to be anything on stage.
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