The Madness of Lady Bright (original) (raw)

The Madness of Lady Bright is a short play by Lanford Wilson, among the earliest of the gay theatre movement. The play was first performed at Joe Cino's Caffe Cino in May 1964. It then toured internationally, and has appeared in revivals to the present day. The Madness of Lady Bright has been cited as the first off-off-Broadway production to receive mainstream critical attention, and earned its original lead actor, Neil Flanagan, an Obie Award. The play, primarily a monologue delivered by its aging drag queen protagonist, has been characterized as among the first to portray gay characters in an unsensational way. It is also one of Wilson's last plays to make substantial use of experimental devices before he began using a more realistic approach.