Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1964452 in Books
• Published on: 1995-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

From Kirkus Reviews
An artful biography from Hatch (English/CCNY; Roots of African-American Drama, 1858-1940, etc.--not reviewed) that conveys the charm, complexity, pain, vision, and humanity of the amazing black gay actor, teacher, and writer Owen Dodson. Born in 1870, educated among the ambitious immigrant European population of N.Y.C., orphaned when he was 12, Dodson, a Bates College scholarship student, was--like many black intelligentsia of his generation--overeducated for the work that was available to him, but he found refuge in a series of academic posts teaching theater at such black colleges as Atlanta University (where he met W.E.B. DuBois), Lincoln, and, finally, Howard. There, his innovative production of Ibsen won the entire cast an invitation to Scandinavia. In plays (Sonata, The Poet's Caprice), a novel (Boy at the Window), and three volumes of poetry, he recorded the deprivations, exclusions, and insecurities that blacks of his generation suffered. He rejected dialect as ``plantation talk,'' as well as what he called the ``art of insult'' used by black writers like LeRoi Jones. Dodson's friendships--which transcended class, race, and political barriers--included alliances with W.H. Auden, Sir John Gielgud (who coached Dodson to do a black Hamlet), and Paul Robeson. His talent, charm, and idealism won patrons and supporters from Orson Welles--who offered to waive his fees for a black educational film--to the four-year-old who assured him that ``God made the world for you.'' But Dodson's sexual relationships were ill-fated and unhappy, and, in 1983, he died a lonely alcoholic, crippled by arthritis. Though perhaps unlucky in life, Dodson is lucky in his biographer--who values clarity, context, the revealing anecdote, and, above all, his subject's art. (Twenty-five photographs) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

frustratingly de-gayed!
Owen Dodson was a black, gay playwright and poet. He went to Yale's drama school and directed Howard's theater department for a spell. Unfortunately, alcohol destroyed his powers, but he outlives most of the people mentioned in this book, nevertheless.

Gay historian John D'Emilio has written that biographies of famous gay men too often focus on the subject's sexuality at the expense of other phenomena, the exact things that probably made the person famous. This book never suggests that Dodson directed explicitly homoerotic plays, so the de-gaying in this book is somewhat understandable. However, as a reader, I got very bored with page upon page of "He directed this play and then that one.", "He hated X play and loved Y play." Yawn! However, his struggles inside Howard University and the school's 180-degree turnaround on Afrocentricity was interesting. All students and professors at Black colleges should peep this book for that reason alone.

This book includes an absolutely fascinating chapter on the interaction between James Baldwin and Owen Dodson, "The Amen Corner." I'm not saying that Baldwin is "all that," but he is the undisputed king of well-known black, gay men. Thus, this chapter was exciting and had me glued to every word. That chapter flew by in ways that the majority of the chapters just dragged.

So the book always acknowledges that Dodson was gay but gives close to no details about it. Then, deep in the book, the author implies that Dodson was almost asexual and interviews one acquaintance as saying, "Dodson was a poor lover." Well, what does that mean? Was he possessive? Not good au lit? Not hooked-up downstairs? Too closeted? Too demanding? The author never explains and it is frustrating to the nth degree.

Dodson associated with a ton of famous black gays (Baldwin supra, Alain Locke, Countee Cullen) and even white gays (W.H. Auden, Carl Van Vechten, John Gielgud). Of course, having lots of gay friends doesn't mean one has a great romantic life. (Don't I know!) Still, it makes no sense that he associated with all these fellow gay males and yet the author only quotes from heterosexuals answering whether they knew if he was gay or not and how did they feel about it. There was just too much straight speculation here on an openly gay man. The book intimates that he had at least two male lovers in his life, yet it emphasizes his failed heterosexual relationships and almost says nothing on his gay ones.

There is sooo much left out of here. Did he go to gay clubs and bars? Did his family accept his gayness wholly or with strings attached? Did the Howard University administration have a problem with it? Did his students? Did stereotypes of gay men in the theater protect him? Did he face racism from gay whites? Did he face homophobia from straight blacks? He was in the military. Did they consider booting him due to being gay? Did being black make them ignore that question under racist ideas that black men can't be gay? Did he prefer New York's gay cliques to Washington D.C.'s or the reverse? He directed Hamlet often. Did he think Shakespeare was gay, as many now hypothesize? None of this comes up and it should have!

I am almost not surprised that Arnold Rampersad wrote the foreword for this book. His biographies of Langston Hughes have been sharply criticized for downplaying that black poet's homosexuality too.