Peekaboo! Ursula Martinez and friends. Photograph: Tristram Kenton.
Where are all the gay comedies? wonders Michael Billington. Where are all the lesbians in theatre? laments Stella Duffy. But look a little more closely and there's room for rejoicing.
For one thing, Duffy doesn't mention the thriving queer performance art scene. Gay artists have been instrumental in the renaissance of Burlesque, and performers like Ursula Martinez, Amy Lame, Chris Green and Adrienne all know playing seductive, teasing games with gender is part of the appeal of theatre. Crossgender casting is on the rise, too, both at the Globe and in troupes such as Kneehigh and Cheek by Jowl, whose shows continue to enchant all audiences.
As Billington points out, Southwark Fair and Mother Clap's Molly House were both National Theatre hits. As I write, Summer Strallen is slapping her thigh as the principal boy in Mark Ravenhill's panto and a radical lesbian feminist is considering whether to tie the knot in The Marriage Bed.
This year has seen a retrospective of Martinez's theatre work, a revival of Bent, and plays by Christopher Shinn and Caryl Churchill, who's hardly shy when it comes to writing gay characters. A teenage girl found religion and came out in Crooked - possibly just to irk her mother. Emma Rice and Tom Morris' adaptation of Nights At The Circus portrayed a rapt lesbian romance. Beautiful Thing sold out and got pre-clubbing audiences whooping.
Oh, and let's not forget playwright Bryony Lavery - still going strong. Or the recent productions of A Raisin in the Sun by the black, lesbian playwright Lorraine Hansberry and Sarah Kane's Cleansed, a play with a distinctly queer sensibility. That's not such a bad batch. And while I'd question whether we need to see Angels in America again (how about Phyllis Nagy's glorious fever dream, Weldon Rising instead?), I'm already goose-pimply at the prospect of Samuel Adamson's take on All About My Mother.
I want more new gay and lesbian plays as much as Billington and Duffy. Theatre that combines a "gay agenda with mass audience appeal"? By all means. And while we're at it, bring on the dramas about lavender marriages, gay dads, open relationships, girls who want boys who like boys to be girls, drag kings and menages a trois.
Whichever sexual constituency you belong to, the need to see yourself represented on stage is powerful (which is why every day I don't have to watch Mamet's dyke snarkfest Boston Marriage is a good one). But more than characters I can identify with, I crave bold, imaginative plays that explore our chameleon desires, and sing the strangeness and variety of the human race.
Maybe wonderful lesbian work will get written when theatres ask for it, but gay playwrights musn't hang around waiting for the big boys to open the stage door. I want queer theatre that's so good, artistic directors can't afford to ignore it. And with impresarios like Neil Bartlett and Nick Hytner around, gay theatre-makers have everything to play for right now. Hold your nerve and keep writing, Stella.
