 |
| Cast of Georgie Porgie. |
GEORGIE PORGIE [Drama/Homosexuality/Marriage/Sex/Suicide/Transvestism] A: George Birimisa; D: George Birimisa; S: Joseph Di Giorgio; L: John Dodd; P: Robert Weinstein and George Grec (Georgetown Productions); T: Village Arena (OB); 8/10/71-10/10/71 (73)
 |
| Barry Kael, George Birimisa in the 1968 production at the Cooper Square Theatre. |
An unevenly written and produced drama about Georgie
(Claude Barbazon), a gloomy young man whose being gay haunts him and who cannot
establish a meaningful relationship with another human being.
His story is told in a series of sketches outlining stereotypical
aspects of the gay life. These include his relationship with his smothering mother
(Stacy Alden Giles); two bickering, married homosexuals, Georgie's failed marital relations with his wife; the connection between closeted homosexuality and bodybuilder types; a black truck
driver pickup; and the S and M relationship between an East Side gay man and a brutal
young stud. Georgie’s life concludes in a bizarre suicide at the age of 34 as
he sniffs ethyl chloride and masturbates while listening to Wagner’s “Liebestod”
from Tristan and Isolde.
The critics rejected this “stale series of vignettes” in
which “all the world’s gay and one’s the happier for it,” as Mel Gussow noted.
James Davis called it “tiresome,” and Arthur Sainer thought it "very uneven.” An earlier production had been done in 1968 at the Cooper Square Theatre.
