Raymond Stanley's Show Buzz The Boys in the Band NOTE: Some language in this page may offend. It is for documentary purposes only. A controversial play about homosexuals opened in New York in April l968. It was The Boys In The Band, the first play by 31-year old Mart Crowley, who had once worked as secretary to film star Natalie Wood. Turned down by many agents, one of whose comment was ‘maybe in five or ten years, but not now’, it was finally taken up by producer Richard Barr, and from then on it became history. It received raves from the New York critics, one of whom said “it makes Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf seem like a vicarage tea party.” It starts out as a birthday party given by Michael for an ugly pock-marked Jewish gay named Harold. There are five other gay guests, plus a hustler who has been purchased for $20 as a present for Harold. The party is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a straight friend of Michael’s - Alan, married with two children - who is distressed. At first everyone tries to act normal in front of Alan, but with more and more drinking the truth emerges. Michael, getting drunker all the time plays crueller and crueller jokes on his friends, and the proceedings become bitchier and bitchier. There are even strong doubts about the heterosexuality of Alan. Not long after the play opened in New York Aztec Services’ Kenn Brodziak attended a performance and immediately acquired the Australian rights. He approached Phillip Productions and Harry M. Miller and suggested they did a three-way production of the play, to which they agreed. The Aztec directors were rather wary of having their name associated with such a product, so at the beginning the company’s name was not used, although Kenn owned the rights. Miller did the publicity, Phillip produced and Aztec took charge of the administration. Then came the task of finding the right director for the play. Bryan Syron was first choice but was decided against. John Tasker, frequently a controversial figure, had recently directed for the New Theatre in Sydney Jean-Claude van Itallie’s trio of plays entitled America Hurrah!, for which Kenn held the rights. Some of the same contentious words as in the Crowley play had been scribbled on the walls of the set and, after a grandmother had taken her 17-year old grandson to a performance and complained to the police, there came a police warning that one of the plays, Motel was offensive to public good taste and decorum. There was an ultimatum to either present the play and risk being fined or stage it in an amended form. Finally a new version of Motel, called Hotel was written by the cast. The incident created a big stir in Sydney. Aware that Kenn was looking for a director for The Boys In The Band, and being a friend of Tasker’s, I suggested he contact Kenn, when he was passing through Melbourne. Tasker was aware of the play, had read all about it in Time and was certainly interested. So he telephoned Kenn on the pretence - which was fairly accurate - and wanting to tell him about America Hurrah! in Sydney. “We did talk about America Hurrah!“, Tasker later related to me, “and then I said: ‘I believe you’ve got the rights of The Boys In The Band and I want to direct it. You’ve probably no idea of my background, have you?’, and he said ‘No’. “Well, just sit there for two minutes and I’ll tell you’, which indeed is what I did. He then said that he’d contact me in Sydney in the next few days, and in fact he actually did that. “I was given a copy of the script. I read it, saw Kenn in his hotel room a couple of days later, said I liked the play enormously and pointed out a number of precautions that one would have to take in regard to the play. For example, to ensure that Emory did not become the central character, and a few things like that. All of which he agreed with. “So, having said I liked it, I was called in - not to meet Kenn again, he’d gone back to Melbourne - but to see Harry M. Miller and Paul Riomfalvy [of Phillip Street Productions] at the Phillip Street office. We talked about the play and about my doing it, and I was offered $1,000 for doing it. I stuck out for a percentage of gross, which I felt was only fair, and they adamantly refused. And in that way I got to directing the show. “I was called to the foyer where there was a great concern; there were Harry Miller, Paul Riomfalvy, Kenn Brodziak, Malcolm Cooke [Brodziak’s assistant) and Stefan Haag, who seemed to be everybody’s shadow at that moment - although he was fully employed at the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust - telling me that it was a disaster, that it was nothing like the American production, that it wasn’t funny. I pointed out that I thought the rehearsal was going quite well. I believe that Harry Miller then and there dictated to his secretary - who then possibly went back to the office and roneoed it off - a press release saying that the first night was cancelled. Kenn Brodziak said that there was no laughter there at all, and no timing of laughs, to which I said: ‘But it’s been impossible to time laughs to the odd groan from the back of the theatre!’ “Act 2, I thought, went quite well again, but again there was a kind of panic and concern, essentially I think because it wasn’t ‘anything like the American production’ and I pointed out that if they’d wanted it a carbon copy of the American production, they should have sent me over there to see it. I was doing it, as I felt, in the best possible way for an Australian audience. “Again there was all this chat about there was no kind of comedy in it, and Kenn Brodziak said ‘The very first laugh in it is ‘There’s one thing to be said about masturbation, you don’t have to look your best.’ To which I said: ‘There’re six laughs before that, Kenn.’ ‘No, no, no!’, he said, ‘that ‘s the first laugh line.’ And I said: ‘I promise you there’re six.’ “Anyhow, it was decided to continue with a preview with an audience the following night, although there was quite a deal of hassling both of myself and the cast, insofar as ‘they’ve got to keep working on their lines, you’ve got to rehearse... make them go through it again now, and mid-day the next day, etc.’ We didn’t rehearse it further that night because John Krummel’s voice fortunately - although possibly not accurately - gave way. I had said however that, although the cast knew nothing about all this terrible affair - lack of faith on behalf of the management, and lack of show business acumen I might say - that if they decided the following night to go ahead after the preview, that they were all going to come right down to the stage and thank my cast. “And it opened and the management continued to worry.... Kenn Brodziak less and less I might say. Kenn, being the wise old thing - or possibly being an exceedingly over-cautious man - refused to have his name associated with any of the publicity at all - at first - until it was accepted as a success. From that moment on Aztec Services also appeared on the posters, but before that it was simply Harry Miller first, and then Phillip Productions. As Harry was in charge of the publicity everybody got the idea that it was Harry’s show, but it certainly wasn’t.” For the staging of The Boys In The Band in Melbourne the venue was a remodelled Kelvin Hall in Exhibition Street, to be renamed the Playbox Theatre. The hall had been owned and used for many years by the Allied Societies Trust, a joint administrative organisation formed by a number of professional bodies (architects, chemists, etc.). The growth and separate development of the various bodies had meant a diminution of the hall’s importance during recent years and its main use appeared to have been as an auditorium for hire. The hall had been sold to Melbourne architect Gordon Banfield for $135,000, and he interested Kenn and Harry Miller in it as a licensed theatre project. The two joined forces to take it over, and successfully made the first application for a new ‘theatre’ liquor licence in Victoria. At the Playbox Theatre Kenn maintained his own office, an old style office which eventually was decorated by some of the cast members of The Boys In The Band, it was done with Thai silk in autumn tones. Harry Miller’s Melbourne representative, Gary Van Egmond, had a suite of offices in the building, Kenn occupied two adjoining offices and Miller the penthouse there. For Melbourne, with its strict censorship at the time, Boys seemed a risky project, despite the show’s successful season in Sydney without any official complaint. Although there was no censorship of live theatre as such, if a citizen made a complaint the Vice Squad could have the play banned, or require changes in the script or performance, and the management could be fined. As a safeguard the management had printed on the backs of all tickets a proviso reading: “The holder acknowledges having read and assessed the company’s and other notices relating to the performance and is aware of the nature and general content thereof and of the category of persons (if any) in relation to whom such performance may be unsuitable.” The first performance went off smoothly, with cast in excellent form, gaining many laughs and much applause. All the four letter words were intact and nobody seemed in the least bit shocked. The production ran for three weeks before any police action was taken. On four occasions police officers had visited the theatre and heard actor John Krummel use the words ‘fuck’, ‘fucking’, ‘cunt’, ‘shit’ and ‘arsehole’. Actor Charles Little used the words ‘fuck’, ‘supertwot’ and ‘arse’, whilst actor John Norman had used the word ‘fucking’. The actors were questioned and a date set for the case to be heard by a magistrate. At the hearing one policeman admitted he had not been to the theatre for l5 years, and a second officer confessed he only went to musical comedies. The actors never denied saying the offending words and the magistrate, after attending a performance, said obscenity charges against the three actors were proven, but recorded no convictions because he said the offences were of such a trifling nature it was inexpedient to inflict punishment. The play continued to be acted as Mart Crowley wrote it, without any cuts. However, this was not to be the end to the saga. The Vice Squad police obtained an order for The Boys In The Band obscene language case to be reviewed by the Supreme Court. It was claimed that the magistrate erred in dismissing information against the actors and that, having found the language was in fact obscene, the magistrate should have convicted the men. The Judge of the Supreme Court pronounced that he considered the magistrate’s reasons for dismissing the proceedings were irrelevant and sent the case back to the very same magistrate for the imposition of a penalty. At the hearing the magistrate said: “A conviction against persons of good character is rather a severe punishment.” He imposed fines on the three actors of $10 each, with two of them three additional fines of $5 each. From then on for the remainder of the season in Melbourne substitute words, conveying exactly the same meaning, were used in the play. There was one amusing incident that occurred one night during the Melbourne season. In the course of the action the cast would be drinking real bottled beer. On this occasion John Krummel, who was on stage throughout the entire evening, wanted to urinate badly. Desperate, he picked up one of the empty beer bottles and, still saying his lines, went offstage, supposedly to the kitchen, and urinated in the bottle, bringing it back on stage with him. It was the custom of Kuki Kaa, who played Bernard, after curtain call, to go around the stage and drink any of the beer left in the bottles. That night he had a surprise! When the production moved to Adelaide a special uncensored performance was staged for the Attorney-General there and members of his staff. After it he asked for two changes: the line ‘Is it bigger than a bread stick?’ and the word ‘shit’ which offended him. (Edited excerpts from the unpublished Kenn Brodziak: A Show Business Legend by Raymond Stanley) |