The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre

Front Cover
Psychology Press, 2000 - Art - 540 pages

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.

 

Selected pages

Contents

The sham in shaman
17
The Greek for it is gynaikiseos
39
Skirting Christ
56
Stages of sodomy
77
Orientations
79
China trade
106
Playboys and boy players
127
The mannish and the unmanned
157
Part IV Subcultures surface
293
Putting on the drag
295
The impersonator of the perverse
326
Amateur hour
350
Children of the ghetto
375
Queens of clubs
377
Alternatives
409
Sex drags and rock n roll
444

Arms and the woman
159
Monstrous pleasures of the baroque
179
Breeches birth
206
Beldames sans merci
228
The prince the pauper and the pan
258
Gladragging the Establishment
459
A gender of their own
481
From dressing up to dressing down
501
Index
512
Copyright

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About the author (2000)

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.