In 1968 this play was rightly considered groundbreaking,
"the frankest treatment of homosexuality I have ever seen on the stage,"
according to Clive Barnes in The New York Times. Produced at a little theater in
Hollywood, it was perceived as an exact account of the prevailing mood of gay life in the
'60s and a wonderfully accurate period piece. Today it seems immediate as ever because
it's a fairly savage comedy about a potentially tragic situation: the conflict between
personal instinct and the dictates of society.
It's a very funny play because of its sharp wit and a very sad play because the wit is often sharp enough to be painful. One of its famous lines, "Show me a happy homosexual and I'll show you a gay corpse," comes from Michael, the central character with a Catholic upbringing and the burden of God as well as society on his shoulders. Clive Barnes further stated, "The power of the play is the way in which it remorselessly peels away the pretensions of its characters and reveals a pessimism so uncompromising in its honesty that it becomes in itself an affirmation of life."
