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French-Speaking Theater,
which has a long history of depicting male and female homosexuals and
exploring the complexities of homosexual life, has been and remains an
important instrument of liberation.
This spotlight is the
second installment in a two-part series. Click here to view Part 1. |
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Jean Marais, a much-celebrated star of
twentieth-century film, theater, and television. |
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 André Gide
(1869-1951), one of the premier French writers of the twentieth
century, reflected his homo-
sexuality in many of his works,
including novels, essays, and plays. |
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Alfred Jarry
(1873-1907), a
precursor of surrealism who is considered the inventor of the Theater
of the Absurd, included homosexual characters and themes in most of his
works. |
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Pierre Loti
(pseudonym of
Julien Viaud, 1850-1923) was one of the most popular and respected
French novelists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
as well as an accomplished playwright. |
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Jean Marais
(1913-1998)
became one of the most celebrated stars of French movies, theater, and
television partly because of the early sponsorship of writer and film
director Jean Cocteau. |
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Jovette Marchessault
(b. 1938), the first Québécoise novelist unequivocally to declare her
lesbianism, has recently devoted much of her attention to the theater. |
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Françoise
Raucourt
(1756-1815) was an eighteenth-century French actress widely
admired for her talent and beauty. Raucourt lived openly with a series
of female lovers. |
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 George Sand
(pseudonym of
Amantine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin, 1804-1876) is as infamous for her
cigar-in-hand cross-dressing as she is famous for her eighty novels,
twenty plays, and numerous political tracts. |
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Michel
Tremblay (b. 1942) is a Montreal-born playwright and novelist
who draws on his own Catholic working-class background in his
presentation of bar culture characters and their relatives. |
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Photo Credits:
The image of Jean Marais is a detail from a portrait by Carl Van
Vechten. Images of Marais and André Gide courtesy of the Library of
Congress Prints and Photographs Division. |
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