How We Looked Off-Off

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<<<Back to Michael Smith’s 2009 play about an evening at the Cino in 1965 On to Playing Dress-Up: Costume Shows>>>

(in case anyone ever wants to costume a movie about us realistically)

many photos, as usual by JAMES D. GOSSAGE

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The too-large overcoat, always in style with playwrights.1965. Edward Albee, LANFORD WILSON, PAUL FOSTER, Kenneth Pressman, Adrienne Kennedy, LEE KALCHEIM. Behind Ms. Kennedy, Lawrence Osgood.

 

GROUPS OF SIXTIES OFF-OFFERS show that we were not nearly so daring as dressers as we were as writers, directors, and actors.

THE ITALIAN LOOK began the decade.

Women were in the forefront with MINISKIRTS.

MEN showed rebelliousness by wearing sports coats with slacks or later jeans, i.e. “not suits.”

A FEW YEARS LATER, “workshirt” would mean blue denim, khaki, or plaid wool, but since at this time we nearly all worked in offices, a “workshirt” was a white one with cuffs and collar. WOMEN who worked wore dumpy stuff if they were just working till they married. If they were “career girls,” they wore chic little suits.

“THRIFT-SHOP CHIC,” necessitated by poverty, was our first move towards more revolutionary dressing.

BRITISH INFLUENCE. Lance and I in variations of Joe Orton’s “working-tough” gear.

BRITISH INFLUENCE. Marshall in Sergeant Pepper regalia and in Carnaby Street flowered shirt and bell bottoms.

BRITISH INFLUENCE. Chuck and Dixie, clearly modeled after John Lennon and Emma Peel.

FUNNY CLOTHES sprang from several directions. Originals like Hope Stansbury with her eclectic mix of vintage clothes had always been accepted downtown. My 1969 jumpsuit took a ritzy leisure look out of the magazines onto the street. Allegra’s 1961 dancer look was an extension of a beatnik style originating in Paris’ Left Bank. The hippie look (here in “Hair” on Broadway, 1968) mixed Beatles-cuts, Third World fabrics and garments, and things like jeans and sandals borrowed from the proles and the poor.

LONG HAIR, of course. Kenny Burgess, Sam Shepard, me, Lanford Wilson, Marshall W. Mason, William M. Hofffman, Tom O’Horgan, Johnny Dodd. LONG HAIR STORIES: Although Sam, Lanford, and I did not really much resemble each other, yet with our cowlicks and long noses, we did look alike to uptowners not accustomed to long-haired men. I once borrowed five dollars from a fan of Sam’s who thought he was lending it to Sam, and Lanford once posed for a French arts magazine as me when I was too busy at the Cino to spruce myself up.

KEITH CARSEY about 1967.

MICHAEL WARREN POWELL, 1968.

DORIC WILSON, 1969.

WALTER MICHAEL HARRIS, 1968.

DONALD L. BROOKS (with Andrew Starr in film, “Pink Narcissus,” photo James Bidgood) 1969.

1965. The too-large overcoat was always in vogue with playwrights, for some reason. Edward Albee, LANFORD WILSON, PAUL FOSTER, Kenneth Pressman, Adrienne Kennedy, LEE KALCHEIM. Behind Ms. Kennedy, Lawrence Osgood.