Tuesday, July 10, 2012

BROADWAY AND HOLLYWOOD - PART 2

And speaking of Tennessee Williams...


This follow up to the announcement of Chris Pine in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway has waited far too long. Between derechos and power outages and family in town and cable outages, piled upon work, working out and personal activities, I am surprised that I've been able to update this blog at all!  Thanks to everyone for staying with me. I hope to amp up the cap-n-clip offerings.

To start with, I am over the moon about the announcement of the film Lonely Hunter, which will be featuring new acting hottie Logan Marshall-Green in the role of American playwright, Tennessee Williams, the author of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie, Sweet Bird of Youth, and A Streetcar Named Desire, among many great works.  

Currently lighting up the movie screens as an asshole in Prometheus, Marshall-Green has a shirtless scene that is incredibly sexy.  He and Noomi Repace, with whom I've become enamored, do some foreplay before sex, and just when it is obvious that his pants are coming down, the camera cuts away as if this were a Julia Roberts PG-rated rom-com, and they want to keep it sweet and innocent...before an acid-blooded alien burns the face off a hapless crew member, an alien snake chokes another by ramming its way into his mouth, and Repace has to perform her very own abortion without anesthesia. Yes, we don't want male nudity muddying the pristine waters of the Alien franchise!  

I digress.

I feel an affinity with Logan Marshall-Green. My mother was born in a community called Logan, I went to Marshall University and our school colors were green and white. In some countries, this would be enough to have an arranged marriage, a tradition I am not against...so long as I could give my parents a wish list of potential partners, or at least a list of characteristics that I desired such as #3--should look like Logan Marshall-Green."  

The 36 year old LM-G was born in the graceful city of Charleston, South Carolina, and he  acquired a Master's in Fine Arts from New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, and has acted in the prestigious Williamstown Festival, so not only does he sound prepared for the Southern gothic nature of the piece, but his training should have him well versed for such theatrical world material. 
Logan Marshall-Green looking sensitive
Tennessee Williams looking sensitive
Tennessee Williams at a nude beach
Logan Marshall-Green not at a nude beach, but hopefully seen at one soon
Williams was known to do things like visit nude beaches (as shown above) or lounge at home in the nude, so maybe the impetus to get LG-M naked exists. While the facial features are a bit different, LG-M does bear some resemblance to Williams, and the frame is just right. Did I mention that LG-M has a twin brother named Taylor?  I love the odds. If you strike out with one, you can take what you learned from your mistakes, and try it all over again! It's like you get a practice boyfriend. 


So far, his career has been in TV shows like The O.C.  Here are some shots of the younger actor from that series. 






















Carson McCullers in her "married" days
Lonely Hunter is a film by acting teacher Deborah Kampmeier, and it is about another American Southern writer, Carson McCullers.


As with many of the complicated and tortured personalities of writers from that generation, who were born in the early 20th Century, there are people who want to argue that McCullers was not a lesbian, because she had been married several times.  The fact that the phrase "several times" comes into play, and yet none of the marriages produced children is your clear signal. And even if it wasn't, the women in McCullers' works were "tomboys," who chopped off their hair, were desperately lonely and had either no use for or no luck with men.  Finally, one need only look at her pictures...






Carson McCullers in her "not married" days
Her first book, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, was written from her small home with her first husband, Reeves McCullers, in Charlotte, North Carolina. I used to live there, and I remember going to the gay bookstore in the same neighborhood as the house, that is now a restaurant, which--oddly--pays no real homage to McCullers beyond a marker indicating that she lived there while writing the book. 




In addition, McCullers wrote the beautiful and moving play, The Member of the Wedding, which launched Julie Harris' magnificent career; the novels Clock Without Hands and the homoerotic Reflections in a Golden Eye, and a collection of short stories called The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, among other works. 






McCullers lived a tortured life of sickness, depression and sadness. She tried to commit suicide while married to McCullers, and when they finally parted, he killed himself in Paris. 


She, who was born in Columbus, Georgia, was friends with Tennessee Williams, who was born in Columbus, Mississippi, as well as Truman Capote who ruined the pattern by being born in New Orleans. All three were Southerners, lived in Paris, and were gay, writers, complicated and angst-ridden. 


Jena Malone, who recently made such a great splash playing Nancy McCoy in Hatfields & McCoys, is playing the legendary writer. 


The glamour shot (below left) is the Jenna with whom we are most familiar, and the butchy cut (below right) looks perfectly suited for the film.


There is no word on who will play Truman Capote, or even if he is in the film. After having two movies about him come out in the same year, you'd think he had his shining moment. 

The film is projected for release in 2013, and it doesn't take a Kreskin to predict that you will find it in arthouse theaters. Given this many real life homosexuals in one film, surely there's going to be some good gay sex in it somewhere! 

For the final word, here is my future ex-husband Logan Marshall-Green...



Alas, he hears my cries... 


"We Are...MARSHALL...Green!"

2 comments:

  1. It's about time LMG get his due, isn't it? And he and Tom Hardy look like brothers, so throw in the fact that he has a twin, and you've got three guys that look like this. Surely we've got a chance with ONE of them. ;)

    I hear ya' talking about the gay sex scenes in movies. The film is a New York production, and the director is a respected acting teacher there, too, so here's hoping that they don't shy away from what would come naturally and give us a forced "straight" sex scene! LOL!

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  2. Very nice read Derek. At first Logan seems too good-looking to play Tennessee, but you're right about the frame being a good fit, which isn't always the case, and there's a certain olive-complection similarity at work as well. Looking forward to it. I agree with triryche--Logan is a beautiful man, and goodness, there's a twin out there too!? Double trouble for Tom Hardy, who probably can handle it! ;)

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