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THE QUEEREST ART: ESSAYS ON LESBIAN AND GAY THEATER. Edited by Alisa Solomon and Framji Minwalla. New York: New York University Press, 2002; pp.x +280. $55.00 cloth, $19.00 paper.
This eclectic array of essays, inspired by a Queer Theatre Conference at The City University of New York in 1995, is touted on the back cover as "a pioneering collection of articles by and conversations among a diverse range of leading theater academics and artists." While offering some truly fine, thoughtful, and even provocative writings useful for both the classroom and theatre practice, the "pioneering" promise has perhaps faded since the collection's catalytic gathering, and several of the dialogues published are not as effective as are the stand-alone essays.
Many of the contributors look at the debate around embracing or rejecting the term "queer" for their work and themselves, whether they are scholars or artists (and some regard themselves as both). Jill Dolan's prefatory remarks, from her keynote address at the conference, aptly set the stage for the essays that follow. She argues that "queer" means multiplicity, and that to be queer "is not who you are, it's what you do" (5).
Alisn Solomon, in "Croot Sparkles of T,list: Homophobia and the Antitheatrical Tradition," deftly links the Puritan fear of the performances of boyactresses in early modern England with contemporary anxieties...