ABSTRACT
Closet Drama: History, Theory, Form introduces the emerging field of Closet Drama Studies by featuring twelve original essays from distinguished scholars who offer fresh and illuminating perspectives on closet drama as a genre. Examining an unusual mix of historical narratives, performances, and texts from the Renaissance to the present, this collection unleashes a provocative array of theoretical concerns about the phenomenon of the closet play—a dramatic text written for reading rather than acting.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part Part I|2 pages
Closet drama and stagings of history
part Part II|2 pages
Gender, sexual politics, and the closet
chapter 7|12 pages
Michael Field’s Stephania
The closet drama as a space for female fortitude and artistic agency
part Part III|2 pages
Closet drama and genre
chapter 8|12 pages
“Closeted” discourses in private theatricals
141The mystification of genre and audience in Christian Carstairs’ The Hubble-Shue
chapter 10|28 pages
“Crazier than a fish with titties”
The hybridity of closet drama in R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet
part Part IV|2 pages
Future directions for Closet Drama Studies
