Glitter and Concrete

Starred review from July 3, 2023
Historian Goodman debuts with an expansive survey of drag performance in New York City from the mid-19th century through today. Drawing on archival research and interviews, she examines the surge of male and female impersonation in Broadway theater at the turn of the century; drag and masquerade balls in Harlem and Greenwich Village in the 1920s; drag revues put on by soldiers during WWII; drag queens’ resistance to antidrag legislation and police raids of queer venues in the 1960s, leading to the Stonewall riot; the avant-garde and punk-inspired drag performances that raised awareness about the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s; and, finally, the rise of commercial forms of drag in the 2000s, culminating in the current era of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Throughout, Goodman highlights members of New York’s queer community and their allies who resisted antidrag laws and social stigma, including Mae West, a male impersonator and playwright before becoming a Hollywood star, who faced censorship and fines for writing several plays in the 1920s that featured gay characters and drag performers (more than once, the police raided performances of her plays and arrested the entire cast), and drag queens Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who in 1970 founded S.T.A.R. (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), the first organization in the U.S. to provide housing for homeless trans youth. Filled with vibrant character portraits and lesser-known histories, this is a comprehensive guide to New York’s long tradition of drag performance and queer activism.