esrosedotblog

Today, a movie performed in the nude.

Actually, a long running stage show refitted for the DVD. With very little embellishment. Get it? Little embellishment.

What I mean is that it is the show and the show and the performers from the show which has been done live in many cities for many years by many many male singer/dancers and as far as I know it is still running in off the main road places. But I doubt it. I think that it has had to run its course by now.

Wait!

Stop the press!

It is still running off Broadway in NYC at the Kirk Theater.

This is a show based on the standard musical review format. Nothing new there. The talent is quite good at singing and dancing. Nothing new there. They are quite good looking. Not new either. And we get to see all of them! New. Definitely new.

Some of the tunes and lyrics are so good that they will bring tears. While the audience is quite mixed in age and gender it is obviously a gay show from the very start. Men hug, kiss, admire each others' anatomy. All of it.

But it goes down quite smoothly I think (!?) because the show is funny, wise, pointed and topical.

It moves. Not a single moment lags.

And finally, the men while attractive are quite "normal". That is, the bodies while athletic, they are dancers, are not extraordinary and the male equipment ranges in size and conformity across a wide range. No man should feel inadequate watching this. There is one set of genitals in their somewhere that are just like yours.

The usual seems to occur, just an expert observation. The littlest and skinniest guys have the biggest dicks. Why is that?

One thing I like about this show is that it confronts its main criticism straight on. The first number is called Gratuitous Nudity which this obviously is and those of us who wish to say it get called out right away.

And, there are many scenes with the bodies clothed, wisely observing the fact that continuous nudity is boring and not very interesting. It is at its best when it is shown a little at a time. Gypsy Rose Lee (look it up) knew this and kept a career as a stripper going for many years after her prime.

She sold it, bit by bit.

Labels: broadway, films, gay films, music

I do not much miss our old life.

But when it comes to the theater, I sometimes grieve for a quick return and some Broadway and off Broadway visits.

I am astonished how much I mind missing this.

Why ‘Hamilton’ Has Heat

I would be in the front row.

I do not want to say that there is nothing out here to go to. But we have tried LA theater. Pale comparison. And the local theater which handles tours is a vast wasteland.

So.

Sometimes life in the desert is life in a desert.

Labels: broadway, theater

I can quit holding my breath for Neil Patrick Harris.

He is an over the top smash hit in the show

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

A musical adaptation of the John Cameron Mitchell movie.

I am a great fan of NPH as he is fondly known to us gays. And maybe others. But he is OUR hero.

He came out when he did not have to. He famously married his life partner. They adopted kids.

This guy is a fabulous human being on top of his talent.

And he was a kid star who did not go off the rails but stayed the difficult path and has arrived.

And, more, he has just arrived in a role that hardly shows him as a butch straight man.

Hedwig is a messy drag queen with a messy story and it is not the kind of play where playing safe can work.

The review is extremely generous to Mr. Harris and I am sure he deserves it. There is a special hell for aspiring stars in the NYTimes and it is in the theater review section.

Harris has managed to traverse the difficult path over the burning flames and arrived on the other side. A bona fide Broadway star. And a gay dad.

Labels: broadway, gay identity

WORN OUT

Because this is a gay household, we are exhausted from watching replays of the Tony Award program Sunday night. One of the highest rated.

With Neil Patrick Harris (he's on our side), it was an extraordinary show.

And CBS generously let bits of it show on YouTube mostly without commercials.

As much as I love dramatic theater, I know it is a Tony Award drag and so they did just musicals as between the awards entertainment.

You can see some great cast work with a lot of dancing and real show business as opposed to the fake shit that appears most days and nights on the teevee screen.

Start with any number on YouTube and then just look around. You will find almost all of it.

First priority is the show opener which I put up yesterday. "It's not just for gays anymore". Then the shows themselves. See Daniel Radcliffe tear it up for How to Succeed". And so on.

The final rap written and memorized during the show itself is quite a bit too.

So if things seem a little slow on the blog it is because we are replaying all these songs over and over. Thank you CBS.

Labels: broadway, fun. music, gay life

OPENING

Neil Patrick Harris opens the Emmies. Perfect.

No one can top him.

Labels: broadway, fun. music