Berto_Tony_201307_PhD .pdf - University of Guelph

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on our stages? How might seeing them affect audiences and their perceptions of gay
persons? Are there reasons why characters in gay plays should appear in particular ways? If
so, is it possible, through understanding the ways in which staged gay representations mean,
to affect the ways audiences perceive gay men?
As mentioned in Chapter One, gay men’s representations in theatre can be
considered an important reference to, and reflection of, the progression towards gay
inclusion in contemporary life. Alan Sinfield claims “stage representations of lesbians and
gay men are influential” and that theatre has “helped to establish, consolidate and challenge
notions of lesbians and gay men that were held both by them and society at large” (Out 1,
4). Audiences viewing gay representations may increase their awareness and
understandings of gay life, and may shift or reaffirm their views concerning homosexuality.
Theatre thus has some potential to affect public perceptions of gay men. Are there ways
then that patterns seen in this study might reaffirm particular views about homosexuality?
Creating gay characters for the stage can also offer community and a gay space to
gay audiences. Through staging gay plays, theatres create gay spaces. These can be
considered places where gay community gathers or is constituted. Unlike television and
film, where programming of material with gay themes is usually decided at a centralised
headquarters, gay programming at theatres speaks to the theatre’s own imagining of itself in
terms of its relation to society and local community. Entering a theatre where gay material
has been programmed allows, depending on the theatre’s acknowledgement of that gay
material, a potential audience member to realise the experience as an instance of gay
community. Such a realisation can reduce or negate feelings of isolation and difference that
gay persons may endure in places where gay community is made invisible. Dennis Altman