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Between Mart Crowley's original staging and William Friedkin's filming there was Stonewall, the patio wall graffiti ("Summer 1968") handily situates the production as a period piece, or a transition piece rather. The timbre amalgamates Neil Simon and Edward Albee, the overture pays tribute to New York in uneasy flux (fashion shoots and midnight cowboys, Robert Taylor portraits on tavern walls). "Six tired, screaming fairy queens and one anxious queer" at the soiree, host (Kenneth Nelson) and birthday boy (Leonard Frey) are rival sardonic sharpshooters. Guests include the chum-with-benefits (Frederick Combs), the "butterfly in heat" (Cliff Gorman), the bookstore clerk (Reuben Greene) and the bickering duo, a divorcing family man (Laurence Luckinbill) and a blithe sensualist (Keith Prentice). The strangers in the nest are the amiably dim hustler (Robert La Tourneaux) and the ambiguously straight college friend (Peter White), whose appearance pushes the roundelay of bitching toward cruelty and soul-bearing. "No camping!" Mainstream society conditions gay people to hate themselves, yet the theatricalization of that self-loathing is a condition for representation in mainstream society, there you have the play and its accompanying quandary. Lasagna and Burt Bacharach muzak and "puke in a gardenia patch," visual modulations for the three acts: The bluish tint of a Manhattan morning, the glow of Chinese paper lanterns against dusky backgrounds, stark indoors lighting for the horror of truth games. (The handheld POV shot for the host's tearful breakdown is reused in The Exorcist.) "Thanks to the silver screen, your neurosis has got style." Hold the line, party's over, a long road still ahead. A persistent Friedkin situation (The Birthday Party, Sorcerer, 12 Angry Men), Cruising is a vital companion piece and no mistake. Cinematography by Arthur J. Ornitz.
--- Fernando F. Croce |