| The Boys In The Band -- Off-Broadway Recording and Film | |
| Posted by: Whistler 03:23 am EDT 10/28/17 | |
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| I stumbled on the film of The Boys In The Band online today. I'd only seen it once, in small town Ohio, the summer it came out. I don't know why it was playing there. It might have been a college town, and two of the actresses and one of the actors I hung out with at a summer stock theater that summer wanted to see it. I don't remember the movie theater being particularly full, but it was probably a weekday afternoon if the actors were off. My schedule was more flexible. I remember the film being physically dark -- darker and more depressing than I thought necessary. I directed the play that winter, at another small college, and barely knew what I was doing. I needed an openly gay student advisor to explain things like "rimming." But two of my other students had seen the off-Broadway production before the film was made, and I must have known about the play before that, either from The Times, Newsweek, or Time, and I was up for directing anything. We played it as unself-hating as the script allowed. I think most of the guys were straight -- I've long lost contact, this was my first teaching job, and I was 23 -- but they listened to the off-Broadway recording once; that's all I allowed. I'd only heard it once before that and haven't heard it since. Still, the guys playing Harold and Emory picked up the cadences and were remarkably uninhibited. But coming onto the film today was old home week. I didn't watch it all. I barely watched the opening scene, between Donald and Michael, and the film wasn't that physically dark yet. Still, I didn't have the time I wanted to sit for a couple of hours and watch, but I will soon. The thing I like best about the film is I can pretend all the guys are still alive. I think only Laurence Luckinbill and Peter White have survived, let alone made it past their 50s. And, maybe miraculously, Mart Crowley. He must be proud, on so many different levels. |
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