The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre

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Overview

The answers to these questions - and much, much more - are to be found in The Changing Room , which traces the origins and variations of theatrical cross-dressing through the ages and across cultures. It examines:

• tribal rituals and shamanic practices in the Balkans and Chinese-Tibet

• the gender-bending elements of Greek and early Christian religion

• the homosexual appeal of the boy actor on the traditional stage of China, Japan and England

• the origins of the dame comedian, the principal boy, the glamour drag artiste and the male impersonator

• artists such as David Bowie, Boy George, Charles Ludlam, Dame Edna Everage, Lily Savage, Candy Darling, Julian Clary and the New York Dolls.
Lavishly illustrated with unusual and rare pictures, this is the first ever cross-cultural study of theatrical transvestism. It is a must for anyone interested in cross-dressing, theatre, and gender.

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Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
The research behind this substantial work is exceptionally impressive. It spans ancient times to modern ones, exploring cross-dressing and drag culture in theater and performance practice, with related references to art and world traditions. Senelick (drama, Tufts Univ.) presents hundreds of examples that dissect the subject with its various underlying myths, meanings, and customs, studying the historical significance and sexual implications of each. From the Greeks and Shakespeare to the lineage of female impersonators to the more current M. Butterfly, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Barry Humphries's most popular Dame Edna Everage, Senelick studies so many facets of the topic that many readers will be startled by its enormity. Despite such eye-catching chapter/section titles as "Skirting Christ," "Stages of Sodomy," "Putting on the Drag," and "Queens of Clubs," as well as the provocative nature of the subject matter itself, this is definitely a serious scholarly work with all of the trimmings and should be of prime interest to large academic, theater, and entertainment history collections.--Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780415159869
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • Publication date: 7/28/2000
  • Series: Gender in Performance Series
  • Edition description: New Edition
  • Pages: 560
  • Product dimensions: 7.40 (w) x 9.60 (h) x 1.10 (d)

Meet the Author

Laurence Senelick is Fletcher Professor of Drama at Tufts University. He is the recipient of awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His many publications include lovesick (1998), The Chekhov Theatre, and the Age and Stage of George L. Fox.

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Table of Contents

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction 1
Pt. I Acting out 15
1 The sham in shaman 17
2 The Greek for it is 'Gynaikiseos' 39
3 Skirting Christ 56
Pt. II Stages of sodomy 77
4 Orientations 79
5 China trade 106
6 Playboys and boy players 127
Pt. III The mannish and the unmanned 157
7 Arms and the woman 159
8 Monstrous pleasures of the baroque 179
9 Breeches birth 206
10 Beldames sans merci 228
11 The prince, the pauper and the pan 258
Pt. IV Subcultures surface 293
12 Putting on the drag 295
13 The imp(ersonator) of the perverse 326
14 Amateur hour 350
Pt. V Children of the ghetto 375
15 Queens of clubs 377
16 Alternatives 409
17 Sex, drags and rock 'n' roll 444
18 Glad ragging the Establishment 459
19 A gender of their own 481
Afterword: from dressing up to dressing down 501
Index 512
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