theatre:

The treatment of homosexuality on the Broadway stage has recently come in for attention from the critics of drama in New York and London, and not all of it bad (see ONE, April, 1961).

When Howard Taubman, writing in the New York Times November 5, 1961, under the title "Not What It Seems" expressed himself "openly and candidly" on the subject, quite distorting and exaggerating the situation, we thought it was time to examine the facts for our readers and correct any false impressions Mr. Taubman may have created.

First of all, to begin with paragraph one of Mr. Taubman's attack. There is not an "increasing incidence and influence of homosexuality on New York's stage. . . ." Nor "in the other arts as well," you silly little Mr. Taubman. You are a bloody, dreary, tiresome fool to make an issue of it, and you used the issue simply because you wanted something to write about and that sounded like a nice attention-getting, controversial subject. There is, on the assumption that you are addressing the theatre-going public, very little sly whispering or malicious gossip. The general public is much less interested in the sex life of costume designers than Mr. Taubman would have us believe. And what the hell business is the sex life of costume designers to Mr. Taubman anyway?

any-

The man is obviously attacking Miles White, Oliver Smith, and Noel Coward gratuitously and for no reason but that he couldn't think of thing else to write about. There are several who would have us believe that the ladies' costumes in "Sail Away" are downright horrors, but they are a collaboration between Oliver Smith and Helene Pons or some other perfectly reputable lady designer. It is also true that one or two of the chorus boys in "Sail Away" are notably well endowed with dangles, and they show it in very tight bathing drawers also a couple have beautiful chests and are not averse to baring them. Granted also that a good many of the young men in "Milk and Honey" rush about

not only for our own

satisfaction

with bared bosoms. Well people in Israel do go around with their shirts off. The other costumes in "Milk and Honey" are generic, they are what the people represented in the situations would wear, done with a nice choice of complementing colors. Granted that a lot of the girls are unattractive; but this is for two reasons. One, women are making themselves less and less attractive in the current cycle, or pendulum swing: leotards, black stockings, beehive hairdo's, garbageswept, uncombed bobs, no lipstick, pale, pasty, slutty faces. Okay. This is 1962, and if they are showing ladies. in 1962 they tend to reflect the way ladies look in this year. Number two --a good many of the chorus girls are simply ugly. They have to be dancers. This is not the Zeigfeld era, with beauties standing still doing nothing. Nor is it the pony-line high kick era, where the routines were simple. The girls were ugly to start with; they rehearse all day in sweaty black underwear, they don't know how to make up anyway, and they look awful on the

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