Drama queens : deconstructing homosexuality in contemporary plays

Abstract

What are the characteristics that make up a homosexual character? The aim of this work is to explore these elements by examining closely two plays that despite only being a few decades apart, were written in very different contexts. These are Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band and Tony Kushner’s Angels In America. Both plays are significant not just because of their stories but also of what they represent; the first major plays tackling queer characters and treating them just like any other human beings. Flawed but not demonised, entertaining but not a caricature. In the ‘Introduction’, there is contextualisation to understand better the position in the historical timeline that these plays have. There is also brief reference to film as this was the main visual media were one could find any source of queer representation before these break through works. When it comes to ‘Chapter 1’, the characters from these plays are put into groups representative of different queer archetypes and examined both individually but also how they contrast with one another and how the same type of character is written in different ways by the different playwrights. This is the bulk of the dissertation because there is a lot of ground to cover. Queer characters went from the one dimensional sissy trope to complex with unique characteristics that set them apart from one another. ‘Chapter 2’ tackles some linguistic aspects but also the influence of pop culture in everyday conversation, taking one reference in specific that is present in both of the plays and how this is symbolic. In ‘Chapter 3’, there is a further look into two of the main characters, one from each play. Starting with The Boys in the Band, we finally have our first proper queer protagonists for the first time in dramatic history. In this chapter, the characters of Prior and Harold are examined not just as case studies on their own, but also what they represent to the social and political environment of their times. And in ‘Conclusion’, we have a look at these plays’ significance today and the development of queer theatre in the public sphere since then. In all of these instances, reference to certain theorists and queer historians is done including the likes of Vito Russo, Judith Butler, Jack Babuscio and so on.