396
SUSAN SONTAG
The &ptism
were put on. I am not sure whether Taylor Mead's per–
formances would have prospered in another setting.
My favorite theatrical event of recent months, though, did survive
the jump from semi-amateur production to off-Broadway; at least it
was still surviving the last time I saw it.
Home Movies
opened in March
in the choir loft of the Judson Memorial Church off Washington Square
and eventually moved to the Provincetown Playhouse. The scene is
A Home. The characters are: a Margaret Dumont mother; a super–
athletic mustachioed father; a shriveIled whiney virgin daughter; a
girlish youth; a red-cheeked stuttering poet sporting a muffler; a pair of
bouncy clericals named Father Shenanigan and Sister Thalia; and an
affable Negro delivery man with a thick foot-long pencil. Certain gestures
are made in the direction of a plot. The father is believed dead, mother
and daughter are lamenting his absence, friends of the family and clergy
are paying condolence calls, and in the middle of it all father is delivered,
alike and kicking, in a wardrobe. But it doesn't matter. In
Home Movies
only the present exists-<:harming people coming and going, reclining in
various tableaux, and singing at each other. There is a fast and witty
script by Rosalyn Drexler, in which the oldest cliche and the fanciest
fancy are meant to
be
uttered with the same solemnity. "It's the truth,"
says one character. "Yes," answers another, "a terrible truth like a
rash." The gentleness and warmth of
Home Movies
delighted me even
more than its wit; and this seemed to me the work of the adorable
music composed by AI Carmines (who is assistant minister at the
Judson Memorial Church) and played by him on the piano. My favorite
numbers are the tango sung and danced by Sister Thalia (Sheindi
Tokayer) and Father Shenanigan (AI Carmines), the winsome strip–
tease done by Peter (Freddy Herko) and the duets between him and
Mrs. Verdun (Gretel Cummings) ; and the song "Peanut Brittle" belted
out by the maid Violet (Barbara Ann Teer).
Home Movies
is a lot of fun.
And the people on the stage look happy to be doing what they are
doing, too. One could hardly ask for more in the theatre-except for
great plays, great actors, and great spectacles. Lacking these, one hopes
for vitality and joy; and these seem more likely to turn up on out of
the way stages, like the Judson Memorial Church or the Sierra Leone
pavilion at the World's Fair, than in midtown or even off-Broadway
theatres. It helps that neither
Home Movies,
nor
The General
and
The
Baptism,
are, strictly, plays. They are theatrical events of a use-and–
throw-away kind-spoofs, joyous and insouciant, full of irreverence for
"the theatre" and "the play." Something similar is taking place with the
movies: there is more vitality and art in the Maysles brothers' film on
