USA Gay Theatre Archive
January 14th 2009 02:42
:
USA Gay Theatre Archive
Having had a chance to skim DONALD BROOK's newly-revised site, I heartily suggest you take a thorough look at it. Even if you have seen it in the past, look again at this much enlarged and augmented version!.
Actor/writer/director/designer BROOKS shows us 1960s-1970s theaters, many of them forgotten or destroyed, and many, many striking photographs and posters for shows he, acted, wrote, directed, and/or designed. (He won an Obie for his set designs.)
Most of the images exude the exotic aura of a style rife Off Off Broadway then, and all but forgotten now - a style enclosing Greek myth, Catholic ritual, Hollywood luridness, Las Vegas glitter, and New York psychedelic complexity.
There is even one play starring playwright H.M. Koutoukas himself, the master of this important and influential style, which Koutoukas himself dubbed tacky glamor and Cobra madness.
What's more, among the often large casts are, besides the famous Harvey Fierstein, such Cino People as Joel Thurm, John Herbert MacDowell, Jacque Lynn Colton, Harvey Tavel, Ronny Tavel, and Deborah Lee - as well as legendary underground stars Mario Montez, Jackie Curtis, and Agosto Machado.
DONALD worked long and hard at the Cafe Cino, and two of these pages cover his bitter play about the Cino, Superfreak and the lively reaction of the Off Off community to it.
Scholars and scanners alike will be enriched, amazed, and entertained by kaleidoscopic flip through a fifty-year career spent on the cutting edge.
R.P.
Actor/writer/director/designer BROOKS shows us 1960s-1970s theaters, many of them forgotten or destroyed, and many, many striking photographs and posters for shows he, acted, wrote, directed, and/or designed. (He won an Obie for his set designs.)
Most of the images exude the exotic aura of a style rife Off Off Broadway then, and all but forgotten now - a style enclosing Greek myth, Catholic ritual, Hollywood luridness, Las Vegas glitter, and New York psychedelic complexity.
There is even one play starring playwright H.M. Koutoukas himself, the master of this important and influential style, which Koutoukas himself dubbed tacky glamor and Cobra madness.
What's more, among the often large casts are, besides the famous Harvey Fierstein, such Cino People as Joel Thurm, John Herbert MacDowell, Jacque Lynn Colton, Harvey Tavel, Ronny Tavel, and Deborah Lee - as well as legendary underground stars Mario Montez, Jackie Curtis, and Agosto Machado.
DONALD worked long and hard at the Cafe Cino, and two of these pages cover his bitter play about the Cino, Superfreak and the lively reaction of the Off Off community to it.
Scholars and scanners alike will be enriched, amazed, and entertained by kaleidoscopic flip through a fifty-year career spent on the cutting edge.
R.P.
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