Issues

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Young people are forever asking with what “issues” the plays written for the Cino dealt. I’m afraid the answer is, “Not many.” Our major “issue” was freedom of expression, our major motif a relationship between young people. Our characters tended to comment on the state of the world more than our plays did, and usually in wisecracks or epigrams The political and economic state of the world, of which we were very conscious, crept into our plays mainly in the ways it created obstacles between our fictitious lovers. I’d say we were about as political as Shakespeare, and less so than Shaw. There were exceptions.

I am VERY pleased to add that I am now in touch with TERRY ALAN SMITH, author of the book and lyrics for the musical-of-ideas God Created the Heaven and the Earth . . . but Man Created Saturday Night, and he promises to look for photos from it. I will have him write a description of it for this page as well.

DORIC WILSON’s Now She Dances!, 1961, was way ahead of its time in presenting a gay protestor (John the Baptist in a Victorianized Salome) before there were gay protestors. Above, Herodias, Salome, and Sir Herod in a 2000 Glasgow revival. (photos courtesy director Stephen J. Bottoms)

PAUL FOSTER’s 1963 Hurrah for the Bridge contrasted the helplessness of a pushcart man being attacked by vandals with his former revolutionary zeal and idealism. Far right, KEITH CARSEY (photo by CONRAD WARD).

Four Cino plays dealt with the Vietnam war in terms of at-home relationships: (1) my Indecent Exposure— protestor GEORGE LINJERIS is busted walking the streets nude with his draft card strapped to his arm. Lit with one bulb by JOHN DODD. Photo JAMES D. GOSSAGE.

(2) my The Warhol Machine–a soldier’s family votes a fascist regime into power, hoping it will save him from future wars. In the photo, soldier BOB SHIELDS stands hearing the fascist, DONALD KVARES, explain, “It doesn’t matter what people believe as long as they all believe the same thing.” Photo JAMES D. GOSSAGE.

(3) LANFORD WILSON’s brilliant skit Wandering condenses into three dazzling minutes a lifetime of brainwashing leading to a man’s death in war. MARSHALL W. MASON and JOHN HERBERT MCDOWELL play son and father. Photo by JAMES D. GOSSAGE. (4) In GEORGE BIRIMISA’s rather surreal Daddy Violet, actors become violets overlooking the Mekong Delta, and are so horrified by what they see, they conclude the play. Photos HERE and HERE.

But psychological problems were more our meat. CHARLES STANLEY’s terrifying 1967mono-drama Opening July Fourth: For Joe expressed his rage at Joe Cino’s suicide. Clown-clad Charles balanced a shining hunter’s knife on one finger and said, “You wanna play games, huh?” This and “Wandering” photo by JAMES D. GOSSAGE.

TOM EYEN’s 1964 The White Whore and the Bit Player posed the question of identity in a media-saturated America through the metaphor of an insane asylum where superstar MARIE-CLARE CHARBA and hopeless movie hopeful HELEN HANFT envied, deplored, and repeatedly became each other.Photo: JAMES D. GOSSAGE.

In 1967’s French Gray, JOSEF BUSH, through imprisoned Marie Antoinette (unforgettable PHOEBE WRAY), expressed the outcast American aesthete’s bafflement that the poor preferred food to expensive displays of costumes and jewelry.

More characteristic Cino themes were: CO-DEPENDENCY in my 1964 The Haunted Host (The Host even slips into the beautiful Guest’s inside-out jacket before shaking free of his fixation with the line, “I never wanted to buy you. I wanted to be you.”)

MASOCHISM in WILLIAM M. HOFFMAN’s 1965 Thank You, Miss Victoria (NEIL FLANAGAN as a surly yuppie succumbs onstage to the power of a telephonic dominatrix.)

SEXUAL FRIGIDITY in LANFORD WILSON’s 1967 The Sandcastle (BILL HAISLIP gets rough when he discovers ROBBIE MC CAULEY is just a tease.)

SEXUAL OBSESSION in TOM EYEN’s 1968 Who Killed My Bald Sister Sophie? (HELEN HANFT and CONNIE CLARK cannot clutch STEVE VAN VOST/DAVIS closely enough to smother his or their anxiety.).

MISSED CHANCE. The Cino might have been the fountainhead of feminist theatre if not for my prudery. CHARLES STANLEY begged me to direct a play by a fetid, somehow fetal woman who wandered in. But I found its coprophagic theme disgusting, so VALERIE SOLANIS took UpYour Ass elsewhere, to Andy Warhol, whom she shot for not producing it. Above you can see, from the film I Shot Andy Warhol, the play being presented in a diner by Lili Taylor, who, believe me, imitates Valerie with perfect verisimilitude.

I am VERY pleased to add that I am now in touch with TERRY ALAN SMITH, author of the book and lyrics for the musical-of-ideas God Created the Heaven and the Earth . . . but Man Created Saturday Night, and he promises to look for photos from it. I will have him write a description of it for this page as well.

At last: program for GOD CREATED THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH BUT MAN CREATED SATURDAY NIGHT!

My drawing from memory of a moment in choreographer TOM ANDRISANO’s amazing “Saturday Night Ballet” showing drunken workmen whoring and knife-fighting because Franklin Delano Roosevelt “spoiled” workers with too much indugence.

There were other plays of ideas. ROSE HENNESSEY’s 1961 The Candles presented a nun who refused to sleep with a priest to continue the species, although they were the last people alive. My drawing of it from memory HERE. I didn’t see EDITH LAURIE’s 1964 The War Vs Women, but there is a sprightly photo from it HERE.