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The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre
Contributor(s): Senelick, Laurence (Author)
ISBN: 0415159865     ISBN-13: 9780415159869
Publisher: Routledge
OUR PRICE:   $52.20  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: May 2000
Qty:
Annotation: The First Major history of cross-dressing in theatre
Whether it's Ziggie Stardust strutting the stage in a white satin gown or a troupe of Kabuki actors masquerading as women to a mesmerized male audience, the evocative transvestite performer offers a subliminal homoerotic fantasy and provides the lasting image of the show long after its closing night. Award-winning theater historian and critic Laurence Senelick synthesizes a vast array of material from archival research and a lifetime of theater-going to provide a monumental record of cross-dressing on the stage. Pantomimists, dame comedians, principal boys, glamour drag artistes, androgyne rock stars, and male impersonators are traced from their roots in tribal ritual and Christian pageantry to today's forms -- the dandyism of Little Richard, the queer sensibility of Sylvester and the Coquettes, the thrift-shop drag of Boy George -- capturing the allure and excitement of gender-bending performance: its rebellion, it's public spectacle, its amusements, its tragedies, its escapism. Senelick brilliantly elucidates the dynamic between the theater as both mainstream forum and anti-establishment haven for misfits, ravers, radical activists, and outcasts. With 100 rare photographs, "The Changing Room" offers a voyeuristic vision of a lifestyle watched by many, but lived by few, and a compulsively readable, authoritative account of the theater at its most sexual and effective.
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Performing Arts | Theater - History & Criticism
- Social Science | Gender Studies
- Social Science | Popular Culture
Dewey: 791.086
LCCN: 99054089
Series: Gender in Performance (Paperback)
Physical Information: 1.22" H x 7.49" W x 9.69" (3.33 lbs) 560 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

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.