Ha, I'venever worn women's clothing,but if I did have a Halston piece in my closet, I could be tempted... No comment on the mustache, but I do justify my lack of chest hair grooming as a homage to the era
I think at first what attracted me to Williams was the movies--all these glamorous stars in old melodramas--I was already a fan of old movies anyway. Then quickly I realized all the issues of censorship, changes, etc--and as a kid I used to be fascinated to see and compare how things had been changed--and got into the plays (my high school theatre program audition monologue was from Small Craft Warnings which now seems odd, since I was still kinda ashamed of my sexuality yet thought nothing of doing it). But definitely the gay sensibility was an attraction even at 10 or 11 (maybe especially, since I hadn't really seen that as blatantly before).
I think I agree with Scripps that that aspect also attracted me to Sondheim (though a part of it was, after being obsessed as a kid with Oliver, Annie, the Disney musicals and then Rodgers and Hammerstein, suddenly playing Company , or whatever, felt terribly grown up and sophisticated in a way I didn't know musicals to be--not to say R&H aren't sophisticated, as I'm sure AfterEight will get mad about if he reads this, but it marked a new awareness for me about what musicals can be).
Yes, it's less obvious in Sondheim--for one thing he didn't have a history of plays with dead gay characters looming over the entire story--or later gay prominent characters. But I think it's a valid discussion.
Of course Williams's was kinda villified, especially in the 60s, by critics who said (along Albee, Inge to some extent, etc) that he was homosexualizing theatre (like that wsa something new), and writing straight characters he shouldn't know anything about who were really gay men. (And then contrary-wise claiming he should be honest, and if he did more out gay characters, Broadway would accept them--which I still kinda doubt). WHen he did start to write major gay characters, like in Small Craft Warnings in the early 70s--out gay critics complained that he was writing unhappy gay characters. He really couldn't win.
Sondheim has got a LOT less criticism about that--although particularly around his last birthday, I remember a few blog posts complaining that neither had he written major gay characters, he also hgadn't written major Jewish characters. I find the whole idea ridiculous (and again, while by the 70s gay characters were showing up more on Broadway--they still weren't really valid in a big, mainstream, Hal Prince budgeted Broadway Musical). I think both arguments are unfair, and miss the point entirely--but I do think it's still a fair discussion, and an interesting one to have.
*end ramble*
