SEXUALITY ON THE AMERICAN STAGE

The depiction of sexuality on the American stage has always been fraught with controversy, challenging playwrights, actors, producers, and censors, not to mention audiences. By the middle of the 19th century, attention was focused on the revelation of the female form as most vividly exemplified by Adah Isaacs Menken's illusion of nudity inMazeppa(1861), which simultaneously scandalized and titillated audiences. From 1880 to 1930, the focus shifted from nudity (it was generally not permitted, although musicals andburlesquefeatured scantily clad chorus girls throughout this period) to frank discussions of life's realities, including sexuality, in the plays of Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, and a few of their contemporaries. The earliest productions of these plays in American theatres inspired considerable controversy, mostly over depictions of marital infidelity, unwed mothers, social disease, prostitution, etc. American dramatists were slow to step into such areas except in the most moralizing ways.James A. Herne'sMargaret Fleming(1890), which dealt with a faithless husband forced to bring his out-of-wedlock child to his wife's care, appeared in this period, although it was not widely seen. The plays of Ibsen and Shaw raised outcries, with producerArnold Dalyand actressMary Shawarrested for producing Shaw'sMrs. Warren's Professionin 1905, a play equating prostitution and marriage.

BeforeWorldWar I, a few dramatists, includingEdward Sheldon, touched on sexuality. After the war, sexual themes were often present, if only vaguely, in depictions of out-of-wedlock pregnancies, faithless spouses, and a somewhat more open awareness of sexuality. Interracial sexuality was occasionally depicted, although not without controversy, as in the case ofEdwin MiltonRoyle'sThe Squaw Man(1905), featuring a marriage between a white man and a Native American woman, but more significantly in Eugene O'Neill'sAll God's Chillun Got Wings(1924), exploring a relationship between an African American man and a white woman. O'Neill received death threats and a significant censorship battle ensued.Mae Westscandalized Broadway with her playSex(1926), in which she assaulted the hypocrisies of contemporary sexual mores, and her next play,The Drag(1927), delved into homosexuality. It so outraged the populace that it never opened in New York despite West's box office clout. Explorations of heterosexuality were more frequently seen, but homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgender issues would not find dramatic voice until after the 1960s.