"In Lieu of Reviews"
For background on how this previously
unpublished series—introducing all mainstream New York shows between 1970 and
1975—came to be and its relationship to my three The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage volumes (covering every New
York play, musical, revue, and revival between 1920 and 1950), please check the
prefaces to any of the earlier entries beginning with the letter “A.” See the
list at the end of the current entry.
Note: This entry is slightly out of alphabetical order and should precede The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel.
THE BAR THAT NEVER CLOSES [Musical
Revue/Barroom/Homosexuality/Sex] B: Louisa Rose (Sketches: Marco Vassi); M: Tom
Mandel; LY: Louisa Rose, John Braswell, Tom Mandel; D: John Braswell; P: Albert
Poland and Bruce Mailman; T: Astor Place Theatre (OB); 12/3/72-13/31/72 (33)
Performed a year earlier at Off-Off Broadway’s La Mama under the
title Everything for Everybody, this
show on the theme of loneliness was given a regular Off-Broadway mounting under
a new name. Its ambience reminded one critic of a Berlin cabaret in the 20s,
and the show seemed more a revue than a conventional musical, despite its
having a so-called “book.”
The saloon of the new title was a place to which lonely folk—all
wearing white makeup—of every sexual
persuasion could go to find someone or something to satisfy their longings.
Homosexuals, transsexuals, and kinky heterosexual frequent it and sing about
their feelings to music described by Clive Barnes as a “quite pleasing, moody,
modish tinkle,” but which John Simon dubbed “electrically overamplified
nonmusic.” Interspersed among the musical numbers were raunchy erotic skits by
Marco Vassi on such subjects as bondage, enemas, and cosmic sex with God.
Barnes enjoyed this “wry comment on sexual permissiveness.”
Simon, though, thought it unoriginal and amateurish.”
Previous entries:
Abelard and
Heloise
Absurd Person
Singular
AC/DC
“Acrobats”
and “Line”
The Advertisement/
All My Sons
All Over
All Over Town
All the Girls Came
Out to Play
Alpha Beta
L’Amante Anglais
Ambassador
American Gothics
Amphitryon
And Miss Reardon
Drinks a Little
And They Put
Handcuffs on the Flowers
And Whose Little
Boy Are You?
Anna K.
Anne of Green
Gables
Antigone
Antiques
Any Resemblance to Persons Living or Dead
Applause
Ari
As You Like It
Augusta
The
Au Pair Man
Baba Goya [Nourish the Beast]
The Ballad of Johnny Pot
Barbary Shore
The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel
