Overview

In studying performances of marriage in modern and contemporary British and American drama, Clum highlights the fact that - paradoxically - at a time when theatre was both popular entertainment and high culture, many of the most commercially and artistically successful plays about marriage were written by homosexual men. Beginning with Oscar Wilde and focusing on some of the most successful British and American playwrights of the past century, including Somerset Maugham, Noël Coward, Terence Rattigan, and Emlyn Williams in England and Clyde Fitch, George Kelly, Tennessee Williams, William Inge, and Edward Albee in the US, The Drama of Marriagelooks at how the plays they wrote about heterosexual marriage continue to impact contemporary gay playwrights and the depiction of marriage today.

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9781349341399

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Reviews

John M. Clum's The Drama of Marriage: Gay Playwrights/Straight Unions from Oscar Wilde to the Present casts a look at important interconnected issues revolving around the concept of marriage. Unique is the vantage point of playwrights whose own sexual orientation was or is partly or entirely towards men. This not only legitimates but necessitates the strong biographical approach Clum has chosen. The volume is immensely readable, garners important results by way of an incredibly dense tour de force, and animates the reader to delve deeper not only into the works but also the life stories of the playwrights discussed. Primary text and author are always the focus and are honoured in this way...John M. Clum's publications are seminal works in their field, and this latest volume is a gem. - Theater Forschung Far-reaching in its historical and dramaturgical scope, and politicizing a previously apolitical aspect of Anglo-American theatre history, Clum's monograph is a helpful intervention into several current discourses. And, given the current divisive debate about same-sex marriage, a debate that is as divided amongst queer citizens as it is anywhere else, Clum's summation that marriage - gay or straight - is always already an 'unattainable ideal' that mere mortals forever fail in, yet find themselves compelled to 'continually strive for,' is intellectually and political brave. - Performing Ethos 'This book offers an appealing companion to Clum's celebrated Acting Gay (1992) and continues to narrate the history of gay theatre. It also will be of interest to those working on gender and the role of women in the twentieth-century theatre.' - Theatre Journal

John M. Clum's The Drama of Marriage: Gay Playwrights/Straight Unions from Oscar Wilde to the Present casts a look at important interconnected issues revolving around the concept of marriage. Unique is the vantage point of playwrights whose own sexual orientation was or is partly or entirely towards men. This not only legitimates but necessitates the strong biographical approach Clum has chosen. The volume is immensely readable, garners important results by way of an incredibly dense tour de force, and animates the reader to delve deeper not only into the works but also the life stories of the playwrights discussed. Primary text and author are always the focus and are honoured in this way...John M. Clum's publications are seminal works in their field, and this latest volume is a gem. - Theater Forschung Far-reaching in its historical and dramaturgical scope, and politicizing a previously apolitical aspect of Anglo-American theatre history, Clum's monograph is a helpful intervention into several current discourses. And, given the current divisive debate about same-sex marriage, a debate that is as divided amongst queer citizens as it is anywhere else, Clum's summation that marriage - gay or straight - is always already an 'unattainable ideal' that mere mortals forever fail in, yet find themselves compelled to 'continually strive for,' is intellectually and political brave. - Performing Ethos 'This book offers an appealing companion to Clum's celebrated Acting Gay (1992) and continues to narrate the history of gay theatre. It also will be of interest to those working on gender and the role of women in the twentieth-century theatre.' - Theatre Journal

Author Information

JOHN M. CLUM Professor of Theater Studies and English at Duke University, USA.

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