stage. The prettier ones all have year contracts in TV. We cannot believe that any producer or director in his right mind would deliberately choose ugly females, therefore, we conclude that they are the only ones available. It is difficult to name five really beautiful girl dancers in the present New York City ballet company. They are girls who work for peanuts and dedicate themselves to excruciating exercise, and it is the likes of them that dance in the current Broadway vernacular.

We will grant parenthetically to Mr. Taubman that one playwriter is at fault these days and is much hated by the female members of his troupe. His almost maniac hatred of women has been allowed to dominate his relations with, his direction of, and his allotment of material to, the women in his cast. But even in this case, the clothes of the leading lady are, because of the nature of her role, mostly pants. We loathe women in pants-but they wear them everywhere.

Who are the authors that Mr. Taubman is attacking? Tennessee Williams and Hugh Wheeler. Okay. Since when has it been demanded of Mr. Williams that he produce only healthy, foursquare normal, heterosexual relationships in his plays? Complaining about a deviational slant in Tennessee Williams' work is like complaining that a black cat is not white. Hugh Wheeler has tried honestly and quite brilliantly to treat the subject. There is often nothing but futility and sterility to be gained from using the homosexual theme on the stage, since one is writing for as many people as possible (in other words commercially), and a large proportion of the audiences consist of either expense-account tourists or Pelham Manor theatre parties, they aren't very interested in homosexual relations. But we fault Mr. Taubman unmercifully on a quite unconnected ground; this is based on

one

the assumption that there is a God. The world is reproducing and making babies on the quick road to total extermination. The pressure of overpopulation is strangling the universe. God has provided wars, famines, floods and the like also a lot of people who, were they honest with themselves, enjoy a roll in the feathers with their own kind. But none of these things work efficiently, so God is letting the fools strangle themselves with their own uncontrolled facility in propagation. The idea of legallizing sex between consenting adults is certainly a civilized approach. In making an issue of homosexuality, Mr. Taubman is merely pointing a finger that has been pointed too often and with no effect. You might as well exile every human being who enjoys wheat bread as make an issue of those who admire their own sex.

And why bring the subject up today? What about "The Green Bay Tree" and "The Captive"? Even "Pleasure Man" or "Sex." if "Sex," if you want to introduce the sublime.

It just happens that the creative urge manifests itself in a few people with homosexual tendencies perhaps, but not necessarily, in more of them than in socalled normal men. A homosexual writing about an ostensibly normal relationship, is no more dishonest or at a loss, than a normal man writing about the love life of an airline hostess. They both know very little from personal experience, but they always try to project what their imagination supplies. There are no more homosexuals functioning in, or influencing the theatre than there were twenty years ago; in fact, there are probably a lot fewer. And certainly there are no more than in any other line of art, or commerce, etc. The proportion is there, always has been, always will be. And it is quite idiotic to make a point of it.

Another thing; we defy Mr. Taub-