GAYS ON BROADWAY

A chronological study of how queer creatives have greatly impacted the theater world.

In his latest book, Mordden, who has written extensively about American and British theater, focuses on the influences of “homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, metrosexuals, and the sexually fluid” on American stage productions throughout the 20th century. The author begins with profiles of high-profile drag queens like illusionist Julian Eltinge and lesbian repertory firebrand Eva Le Gallienne, who, alongside many others, paved the way for gay characterizations and storylines through both “serious drama” and “minty repartee” roles in the 1920s. Another major figure of this time was Mae West. “In a way,” writes Mordden, “she was like a hetero version of your gay uncle, a bank of information about the world that was far more intriguing than anything you heard from your parents.” The author then moves on to discuss Hollywood’s suppression tactics, including the 1927 Wales Padlock Law, which banned any form of “sex degeneracy” from appearing onstage. But the resurgence was swift in subsequent decades as luminaries like Tallulah Bankhead, Harvey Fierstein, and an exhaustive list of others ushered in new sex-positive, gay-identifiable productions like The Boys in the Band, Torch Song Trilogy, The Normal Heart, and Angels in America. Despite its brevity, Mordden’s book is filled with hilariously quippy biographical information—e.g., “portly and owlish” Alexander Woollcott was as gay “as a parade of candy canes”; Joan Crawford “was one of Golden Age Hollywood’s great phallic women”—and contributes uniquely detailed backstage stories from celebrated productions that have continued to shape American theater. As intolerance faded, queer culture thrived, moving well beyond the strict artistic censorship and homophobia that proliferated in the early decades of the 20th century. Gay historians and theater buffs of any persuasion will appreciate this terrific, condensed 100-year retrospective.

A lively, highly knowledgeable report on queer culture’s significant contributions to Broadway.