A Queer Sort of Materialism by David Savran

Theater critic David Savran explores the intersections between art and culture, interpreting the economic and social contexts of theatrical texts and practices. Acknowledging theater's marginal status in American culture, he takes on the troublemakers who figure more prominently in theater than in other cultural forms: the ghost, the closeted homosexual, the masochist, the drag king, the Third World laborer, even the white male as victim. In essays ranging from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Paula Vogel and from Suddenly Last Summer to Iron John, Savran shows how these figures both challenge and reinforce orthodox social practices, and offers a model of queer historical materialism.