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Getting Naked

Lampooning the theater for its pretensions to art and its inability to match the financial clout of cheap entertainment is a classic comedy device. One thinks of P.G. Wodehouse, Ben Hecht, Kaufman & Hart, Noel Coward, and even Mel Brooks as icons of the form.

You can add one more name to that list–David Bell. His new comedy, "The Gay Naked Play," is chock full of theatrical satire and topical references that will leave you rolling in the aisles. It’s a delightful screwball comedy.

Filial and Paternal and Plenty of It

“Father and Son” is the most homoerotic straight film to come along since last year’s teen horror opus, “Jeepers Creepers 2.”The film opens with two men, clad only in their underwear, moaning and groping at each other’s torsos. Surely, this must be a sex scene. No, appearances are deceiving. The men are father and son, not lovers. The father is trying to comfort his son after a nightmare. Nevertheless, the homoeroticism remains prevalent throughout the movie and there’s no question that "Father and Son" is a love story, even if its characters’ sexual desire goes sublimated or unexpressed.

Dismissing the French

One of the best portraits of gay teen life on screen, “You’ll Get Over It,” was originally produced for French television. Given the frank depiction of teenage sexuality—and frequent frontal nudity—it is unimaginable that anything in this vein, much less of this quality, would ever be made for American television, even cable. The theatrical film “Edge of Seventeen” comes closest in caliber.

Two Dads Birth a Daughter

The “phenomenon” of gay couples wanting to become parents is not new. So what’s new in “Paternal Instinct,” the chronicle of two gay New Yorkers who seek out a woman willing to help them produce a child?

Cinemascope

The Role of the Camera

It would be difficult to overestimate photography’s impact on contemporary art, whose star these days is completely ascendant, to the extent that other mediums, particularly painting, look to photography for inspiration. In fact, photography’s influence has been so prevalent that Jerry Saltz recently called for a moratorium on paintings so inspired. "Evidence of Impact: Art and Photography 1963-1978" modestly attempts to flesh out some of the contours of photography’s first foothold in contemporary artistic practices.

Sailing Forth

From Lesbos

Mention of Mary Boone’s Chelsea gallery generates an expectation of big paintings. In the current exhibition of new works, however, Hilary Harkness takes license to show three, and only three, relatively small paintings. Why three small paintings?

Scrappy L.A.

Gay Boy

“Half-Life” is the literary equivalent of catching a really huge wave—well, the milli-second just before you grab it, actually. It’s thrilling and scary and crazy and feels like forever, but the promise of glory is too much to resist. Cargo senior editor Aaron Krach offers his debut novel.

Embedded Émigrés

Those fat Spartacus and Damrom travel guides for men make one thing perfectly clear—there’s a big travel market for gay men, and since the libido is portable, why not make it easier for gay men to find sex while abroad? And despite the wealth of legitimate listings in books and underground venues suggested on illicit Internet sites, gay men have been known to stumble across sex in locales not hinted at in any of those sources and at times they’ve least anticipated it. Editor Michael T. Luongo has assembled a diverse collection of gay travel erotica.

Reading Room

Once Again, with Feeling

When I first saw Kathy Najimy and Mo Gaffney’s first HBO comedy special, I was a budding baby dyke, barely 18. I laughed hilariously at their “Holly and Molly” sketch, two lesbian performance artists spouting lines like, “Oh, golden labia of goddess love, let your champagne flow!” Thankfully, they”re back at Second Stage Theater through July 11.

A Wit Freighted With Fatigue

The Monster sank into a chair and arranged the glasses before him—one glass of ginger and fizz, the other of wine. It is from both liquids, he confirmed, that he sips at close intervals throughout the hour and a half of his show—in between the constant drags on cigarettes. "I myself would not be standing up under all that wine," a Yankee journalist remarked.

"It’s something that I grew up with," the Monster dryly replied. He’s a darkly handsome 32-year-old Irish-born, London-seasoned man named Dylan Moran, and "Monster" is how he’s billed throughout Britain and Europe and now at the Village Theatre on Bleecker Street.

The Producer

and the Pol

Bette Davis took a drag on a cigarette, looked down from wherever she is, or maybe up, and said: “Go for it, man,” so state Tom Duane heaved a big sigh, wrapped his hands around his brow, thought a long thought, and went for it.

Broadway Buff Fights AIDS

The selfless chorus girls and boys from Broadway musicals should still be sleeping, or taking a dance class, but instead they’re in a stifling rehearsal space above City Center before noon running through the silver screen-inspired installment of an annual rite of very late Spring.

Summer Offerings Sizzle

Though the annual gay and lesbian film festival NewFest has come and gone, those seeking summer fun need only to look toward the horizon. Gay City News’ Baedeker to summer festivals in and around New York City.

Out on the Red Carpet

Just 10 years ago, out gay and lesbian performance artists were the exception and their coming out prompted big headlines and extended public comment. Just think back, for example, to the media hoopla surrounding announcements by lesbian stars k.d. lang, Melissa Etheridge, and then Ellen Degeneres about their sexuality.

You’ve Got

the Look

& AMY SABO

ut with the old and in with the new! Or is it? We caught what was supposed to be closing night of the Public Theater’s gut-punching revival of “The Normal Heart,” but the run was extended until August 8. That means a whole lot more primal screaming for the excellent, if sore-throated, RAUL ESPARZA as author LARRY KRAMER’s alter-ego, Ned Weeks.

7 Days/ 7 Nights

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