Tuesday, June 23, 2020

176. FLOWERS. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

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)

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.

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.

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