The conviction of Oscar Wilde in 1895 for the most part shocked British theatre into silence where homosexuality was concerned.Wilde’s plays disappeared from the repertoire and there was no play written about the author until 1936. In the US in the early years of the 20th century female impersonation remained in vogue. Its most famous exponent was Julian Eltinge (1881-1941), who appeared on Broadway in comedies like Mr Wix of Wickham (1904) and The Fascinating Widow (1911) in which a man disguises himself as a glamorous woman. His contemporary, Bert Savoy (c. 1876-1923), played bitchy female caricatures, mostly in revue. It’s said that Mae West copied Savoy’s walk, voice and style for her own act. She may even have adapted his catchphrase, “You must come over”, to “Come up and see me sometime.” Eltinge’s sophistication inspired a type of drag that’s still popular, but primarily with women and straight couples. Savoy’s ludicrous characters were a prototype of gay bar drag and he’s been called the first modern drag queen.
Around the turn of the century British playwrights began trying their hand at a new style of social drama that had originated in Russia and Scandinavia. Harley Granville Barker’s The Madras House (1910) is concerned with feminism but features the couturier, Mr Windlesham, whom The Cambridge Guide to Theatre believes to be in effect the stage’s first homosexual.
THEATRE B.C. (BEFORE COWARD)
Mae West (1893-1980) is regarded as a pioneer of American gay theatre; but her plays The Drag (1927) and The Pleasure Man (1928) are seldom revived because they promote some very old-fashioned prejudices about gay men (“poor degenerates.”) Gay playwright Avery Hopwood (1882-1928) was a Broadway sensation throughout the 1920s; but he expressed himself only through his female characters. (He died of a heart attack allegedly induced by analcohol and cocaine binge with a young soldier).
After the Great War the allure of forbidden homosexuality once again became irresistible
By far the most significant playwright to emerge in the 1920s was Noël Coward (1899-1973), another gay man who rarely if ever wrote gay characters, but whose life and works now epitomise High Camp. His first big success, The Vortex (1924), is one of his most revealing plays even though it reveals nothing. Semi-Monde dates from the same period (1926) but was unproducable during Coward’s lifetime. Set in the bar of a Paris hotel, it observes the comings and goings ofdozens of characters, some of whom are clearly gay, lesbian and bisexual. It was first staged in Glasgow in 1977. By the time it turned up in the West End in 2001, the critics were in no mood for such a period piece. Coward’s gayest play is Design for Living, which we’ll deal with next week.
GREAT GAY PLAYS
The Vortex (1924)
Nicky Lancaster is a young composer and drug fiend with an overbearing mother. The play reflects the 24-year-old Coward’s feelings as an outsider (“I’ve grown up all wrong”) and still retains some of its power. Coward substituted cocaine addiction for repressed homosexuality. The part of Nicky appeals to gay actors of every generation. Coward wrote it for himself; John Gielgud was his understudy. Ivor Novello was in the 1928 film, Richard Warwick in the 1969 TV production. More recently Rupert Everett and Will Young have had goes at it.
The Prisoners of War (1925)
Ackerley based his play on his experiences in a POW camp during the Great War, when he fell in love with another inmate. The Ackerley character is Conrad, who says, “The fair sex? And which sex is that?” He affectionately strokes the hair of his friend, who warns him, “Look out, someone might come in.” It was all done subtly enough for the Lord Chamberlain to allow the play to transfer to the West End. Ackerley’s later relationship with his dog has been the subject of two films, most recently My Dog Tulip, released earlier this year.
