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| David Haughton, Lindsay Kemp. |
FLOWERS
[Drama/British/Homosexuality/Nudity/Prison/Sex/Transvestism] A: CN: Lindsay
Kemp; SC: Jean Genet’s novel, Notre Dame
des Fleurs; D/DS: Lindsay Kemp; L: Lindsay Kemp, John Spradbery; P: Herman
and Diana Shumlin and Merrold Suhl i/a/w Larry Parnes; T: Biltmore Theatre;
10/7/74-10/26/74 (24)
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| Center: Lindsay Kemp. |
"[N]either dance, mime or drag show but a little of
all three,” as Clive Barnes described it, this frankly gay British import was
concocted by Scottish pantomime artist Lindsay Kemp, who starred in, wrote, directed,
and designed it. Basing his ideas on a novel by French writer Jean Genet, he
included, to a taped musical background, various scenes of candidly depicted,
but simulated, sexual behavior, from masturbation to sodomy to transvestism.
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| Lindsay Kemp. |
Jean Cocteau and Buster Keaton were other acknowledged
influences, but some critics detected touches of many other sources as well.
Since Barnes felt these sources were not properly assimilated, he wrote, “Mr.
Kemp too often debases his material into a kind of self-indulgent parody.”
Set in a prison, graveyard, Montmartre café, garret,
and theatre, Flowers possessed little
by way of a plot. It was more concerned with finding theatrical means by which
to express the fantastical sadomasochistic world of its bizarre characters.
Blood was a central image in much of the activity, and the cast was often seen
in the nude.
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| Lindsay Kemp and company. |
Despite some effective atmospherics, the work was too
drag queen and camp-oriented for most Broadway tastes, although Brendan Gill
found much of it funny and moving, calling the white-faced cast “a pleasure to
watch.” A more widespread opinion, expressed by John Beaufort, held it to be “A
lewd and disgusting grotesquerie [that] mimes human degradation.”
jd