to advance the projects in the form of materials and essential minimal overhead. Postage alone has increased almost 30% in the past few monthsthere is now more outgoing mail at a higher rate. The Society has been forced into debt.

With gratitude to those who have contributed in the past and who are contributing now, Mattachine once again asks those others among its members, subscribers and friends to come to its aid immediately. And for the fearful among those who read this, please remember that nothing is so anonymous as cash (we are mindful and appreciative of a friend in a high position who folds a $50 bill into a sheet of paper several times a year and mails it to us). Thus there is no excuse to avoid your responsibility to help.

Urgently, Mattachine needs to raise $5,000 within the next 60 days to assure its continued operation.

This appeal is for help desperately needed, but not for "pie in the sky" promises of grandiose gains to be made in a day. Mattachine's "war chest" against ignorance and injustice is no one-shot thing. Change IS taking place; old prejudices and outmoded attitudes are slowly giving way to the forces of enlightenment and knowledge. This takes time, but it is happening and Mattachine is a factor in this humanitarian progress. One need only to read some current books and magazines, or to hear some radio and television programs to learn this fact. But in the meantime, greater numbers of individuals are caught up in problems that are Mattachine concerns, and more and more of them are coming to us. We cannot close the door in their faces. Will you help us keep it open and let the light shine through for the good of all?

A little from a lot of you will make it possible. A lot from a few of you will make it even more assured. Finally, it is gratifying to learn that Matfachine is remembered in many wills and bequests from people who believe in what it is doing. This is fine, but unless the project survives and overcomes its problems here and now, the bequests of the future will be of no benefit.

So we ask again: WHO wants problems? None of us. We all want solutions. Mattachine is now entering its 14th year of solving problems for others. Will you dig deep and help Mattachine solve its most pressing problem?

Thanks a lot from all of those who will be helped to a happier and more meaningful life as a result.

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A column of commentary and criticism on + the fine and lively arts, from New York

performing ARTS

DAVID LAYNE

NOW THAT WE are "The Performing Arts," it has been suggested that your columnist move to Lincoln Tower Apts. near Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, but the rent's too high, and the Village is a performance arty enough! Now with spring, the Village is warm and peaceful amid its chaos. Every one seems to be walking around looking for buds...or is it buddies?

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF just didn't reach my expectations of a play with valid homosexual probabilities. There is the mother-son incest motif (albeit the son was never born!). and there is an underlying tension between the two men... if you want to find it; but the main plot device and most of the dialogue has to do with the illusions humans depend upon to bolster egos, protect relationships, and maintain a status (quo or otherwise). The script is a brilliant exercise in vulgarity, profanity, and sacrilege (and I loved every 7-1tr word of it!). Never have two couples played such evil games on stage (one "game" is called "Hump the Hostess"). Edward Albee, acclaimed far, wide and handsome as the 60's O'Neil, Williams, Strindberg, ETC., strips four people to the marrow, and then they devour even that. Uta Hagen, as the older wife, savagely portrays the ultimate earth-bitch. Arthur Hill, her husband, is nearly as bitchy; Melinda Dillon plays a young bitch, and Ben Piazza is "a bitch of a stud." Surely the four resemble the bitchiest people you know, and perhaps the two couples represent four bitchy homosexuals: defensive sadists who cover their masochism by changing partners and bitching!

TCHIN-TCHIN with Anthony Quinn and Margaret Leighton reminded my companion of the same situation. No other reviewer has made the comparison, but the two couples here (Leighton and her husband; Quinn and his wife) seem just as promiscuous and nearly as bitchy. The play isn't as good (the plot isn't certain of its own existence), but the performances are worth seeing, and my friend may be right. Maybe the entire world is getting "that way." Is bitchery all we have... married or single...straight or gay... on or off stage?

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