ABSTRACT
There is a greater tradition of unabashedly political drama in Great Britain than there is in the United States. Since the 1950s playwrights such as John Osborne, Arnold Wesker, and Howard Brenton have used the stage as a platform for views on the declining state of England, and since the 1960s minorities, women, and gays have developed theatrical groups to argue for their positions. Gay political theater was struck a harsh blow in 1988 when the British Parliament passed Section 28 of the Local Government Act. Local Government Act stated that: A local authority shall not: promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality; Promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptance of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship. Patrick Wilde's unabashedly polemical What's Wrong with Angry is a healthy challenge to the prevailing antigay government rhetoric and the government-induced timidity of many theaters.
