Michael Riedel: To The

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

I found this interesting article that Riedel wrote about Gore Vidal. from RC in Austin, Texas
Gore Vidal

[aaronb]

Nice. Though I doubt theater critics have the same power anymore.

[GavestonPS]

Howard Taubman didn't just have any old "enemies list", he launched a personal crusade against gay writers on Broadway, claiming they were subverting the morals of the nation by writing characters, particularly females, as if the females were drag queens.

(What was his evidence? Well, it was sexist as well as homophobic. A sample argument might be that a female character who craves sex is obviously just a drag queen, because women don't particularly like sex.)

His argument that gay writers couldn't possibly know anything about straight characters (I don't know where he thinks we gays seclude ourselves) even convinced some liberals, which is why you find William Goldman echoing the sentiment a half-decade later in THE SEASON. Writers such as Goldman (and critic Stanley Kaufman) claimed their aim was to "liberate" gay writers and perhaps they meant that, but I think we can all recognize the condescension in their point of view.

Taubman and his NY TIMES columns and reviews did irreparable harm to American drama during the sixties, particularly in the commercial theater.

[EricMontreal22]

There's a fascinating chapter on this in Christopher Bram's recent Eminent Outlaws book about American gay male authors. I think ti was Albee he pointed out that most gay writers lived as children of straight marriages, and see them all around them, so why wouldn't they be able to write about them (re Virginia Woolf). The whole counter argument that these critics had (Martin Gottfried even seems to have joined the group) that they want to liberate gay writers to write about gay material is bunk--they then made ridiculous other excuses for not liking the few gay plays they did do.

[jv92]

I'm sure I could Google this, but I don't feel like wasting my free Times articles on this. Anyway, didn't Taubman like VIRGINIA WOOLF in 1962? I know Kerr hated it, but then again, Kerr had some sort of personal vendetta against Albee.