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By Steven Madison
Q-Notes Staff
Something very unusual happened re
cently as I viewed the national touring com
pany of "Cats" at Ovens Auditorium. For the
uninitiated, "Cats" is a musical adaptation of
T.S. Elliott's book "Old Possum's Book of
Practical Cats." At the show's end, we're
informed (as if we hadn't thought about it
earlier) that the world of cats is much like the
world of people: full of the good and the bad,
the silly and the serious, the old and the
young: all trying to eke out a daily existence.
But why, I wondered as I sat there, aren't
there any gay cats in Elliott's world? There
certainly should have been, if, as Elliott
wanted us to imagine, the world of cats is
very much like the world of humans. And,
had either Elliott in his original work or the
originators of the London and Broadway
adaptations thought about such an obvious
omission, this sellout Broadway smash for
the last six years could have been hammering
away that gays are all around and trying to get
through the day pretty much like everyone
else.
Unfortunately for our cause, the broad-
way musical theater, which the gay world has
played a fundamental role in fashioning,
hasn't done much in the way of validating the
homosexual. One can count on one hand the
Broadway musicals in which gay characters
or their stories have played an important part.
"La Cage aux Folles," of course, must
rank as the preeminent gay musical theater
smash. As a popular entertainment, "La Cage"
played over 1,800 performances, each of
them driving home the point that "we are
what we are," with no excuses offered or
required. With several of its creators under
standing the nature of the homosexual to
their very bones, no other musical written for
the commercial theater approaches the mes
sage of "La Cage."
Everyone familiar with musical theater
would be certain to mention the two ac
knowledged gay characters in "A Chorus
Line." But, how positive are those role
models? Paul, who had been a chorus dneer
in sleazy drag shows, injures himself before
the final selection is made, and Greg, upper
East Side though he be, isn't among the
chosen eight in the final elimination.
"Applause," the musical version of the
film "All About Eve," replaced the Thelma
Ritter character from the original with a gay
dresser/confidant for stage star Margo Chan-
ning. Basically, though, his major impetus
in the play is to take Margo to a gay bar so she
can dance with the boys for the show's first
production number "But Alive."
And that's it! Three plays (all set, inciden
tally, in the world of show business) make up
the entire repertoire of gay mainstream
musical theater. To be fair, off-Broadway
has provided other illuminating gay musi
cals: "Boy Meets Boy," "March of the Fal
settos," "The Faggot," "Wonderful Lives!"
and most recently "The Ten Per Cent Re
vue." Still, the musical theater seems an ar
tistic area just ripe for some gay revelation.
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