'Faggot' revue cheerfully funny

NEW YORK (P)—– A musical revue show about homosexuals that is sympathetically understanding and funny, happily not hysterical, camp, sentimental, dirty or militant, has opened at the offBroadway Truck and Warehouse Theater.

It is called "The Faggot," and has lyrics and music by Al Carmines, who also directed, plays piano on stage and, in one scene, takes the part of Oscar Wilde.

A CARMINES show usually displays in how many musical styles he can compose, from rock to ragtime to Rachmaninov. This time, he has held back some of the musical versatility to concentrate on versatility of lyrics and point of view from song to song, detailing facets of homosexual life.

The first half of the show is about the present day. The tone is set with

By Margaret Campbell

the cast of 15 singing "Women with women, men with men, we search for ourselves in what is like us."

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IN ONE SONG, which has a melody reminiscent of "Among My Reveries.' and which is surprisingly touching, a high-level government man tells his aide that gay liberation has come too late for him and he will remain alone, hiding and daydreaming.

In another skit-song, three young men are following a guru, learning to think of spirit above flesh and admitting to temptation with the plaintivelysung line, "But when the moon shines over the Lower East Side."

There is a song titled "Desperation," a fiveminute opera "The Hustler," with a funny surprise ending, and a scene in a gay bar with a torch song with German gutsi-

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ness by the woman owner and a tease song for the regular customers by "The New Boy in Town." This is all done with wit and a light touch.

THE SECOND ACT has a mixture of today and yesterday. It has a song for the ingenue, "Fag Hag," about a girl who socializes with homosexual men. There is also "What Is a Queen?", sung by a mán dressed like a woman, and an encounter between two men, one who wants the other to be a tough.

There also is a duet, as a grand-manner art song, in which Oscar Wilde and Bosie sing that their love is torment but they know they're living. In another duet, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas sing sweetly that ordinary things like making up a menu are splendor because they love each other. David Vaughan, who has

worked on a dozen Al Carmines shows before, did the choreography. T. E. Mason did sets and costumes.

WHILE the chorus was being a chorus instead of playing parts, both men and women wore black slacks, white shirts and black vest-sweaters. The stage had a platform with stairs at each side and, wrapping around the cor ́ner toward the front, a big piano and a curved backdrop for a variety of bright colored lights, all very simple and elegant looking.

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At the end the chorus sang, "Love what you want and we will too," as though expecting to be performing to a heterosexual audience. Maybe that's why the evening doesn't have the aura of an in-joke but does seem to be cheer-

fully, humorously, informatively, bringing it all out

of the closet.