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| Al Carmines, Ira Siff. |
THE
FAGGOT [Revue/Homosexuality] M/LY/D: Al Carmines; CH: David
Vaughan; S/C: T.E. Mason; L: Gary Weathersbee; P: Bruce Mailman and Richard
Lipton; T: Truck and Warehouse Theatre (OB): 6/18/73-11/25/73 (182)
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| Tom Coppola, Lou Bullock. |
Another in a stream of campy musical shows created by
Al Carmines, the indefatigable pastor of Judson Memorial Church, this revue about
male and female homosexuality moved from its Off-Off Broadway mounting to Off
Broadway, where it met with a quite respectable press and ran for almost half a
year. Carmines made his acting debut in it, in addition to being the writer and
director.
The
Faggot was a non-militant, unself-pitying, lighthearted
survey of an assortment of gay life and love styles, expressed through lively songs
and sketches, and purporting “to reveal the similarities in the many faces of
love,” as Clive Barnes put it. Scenes included one about a pickup in a gay movie
house; a gang rape in a gay bar; a bedroom showing two men who met only the
night before; two mothers congratulating each other on their gay sons’ plans to
marry; Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein; Lord Alfred Douglas and Oscar Wilde,
and so on.
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| Peggy Atkinson, Lee Guilliatt. |
Carmine’s script was often funny, but uneven, and
generally considered the weakest feature. Walter Kerr detected an ambivalence according
to which the extolling of homosexuality was undercut by sketch after sketch showing only “the steaminess” of gay life. Barnes argued that the bits
simply were too “obvious.”
Carmines’s music and lyrics fared much better. Despite
its being an eclectic blend of familiar styles, his score was “wholly
joyous,” wrote Barnes. He walked off with two Drama Desk Awards, one for Outstanding Lyricist, the other for Outstanding Composer.
The forthright treatment of same-sex love was successful, marking what John Simon called a major advance for the
composer/writer. “The show has a refreshing, almost heady candor; in its modest
way, it exudes the ozone that so vitalizes the higher altitudes of truth.” A
very well-balanced and gifted company of singers and dancers helped make The Faggot “one of the best sung and
most melodious musicals on or Off Broadway,” concluded Barnes.
