Gayest Thing Ever.

Okay. No one expects Broadway musicals to be way heterosexual.

Broadway musicals are gay. We all know that. Gay gay gay.

And nobody minds. People come from all over the U.S. and all over the world to be enchanted by the kind of magic that homosexuals and strong women know exactly how to create.

I know that is very very Tennessee Williams, but that's the way I see it.

But while watching the Tony Awards (TM) and half paying attention to an excerpt from Mary Poppins, just expecting warmed-over movie musical numbers to be loudly splashed upon the stage, what do my tired eye behold?

A big naked muscle-y silver guy. Dancing with a little boy. And he's wearing a fig leaf.

And thank God for the fig leaf. With the size of this guy's muscles, I'd be terrified to see what that fig leaf covers.

I mean the fig leaf is the size of a baby's quilt.

And there he is, silver muscle fig-leaf guy, dancing with a little boy.

Well, it turns out that at some point in the show some kind of statue or statues come to life and dance. I guess if you don't have Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke you need that kind of thing. So he's not really silver, he's more gray or marble-colored. So be it.

Silver/gray seems to be the tasteful color of the evening. I note that Vanessa Redgrave--Was she not nominated for playing Joan Didion? Is there no God? Isn't it the same question?--was also wrapped an extremely tasteful silver-gray sheath of some sort.

Silver is clearly the new black. Classier than black. Way beyond brown and navy and burgundy.

So he wasn't silver muscle guy. He was gray muscle guy. Nevertheless, his presence and actions on the stage do pose certain questions.

Namely, little boys who perform in Broadway musicals--well, it's a touchy subject. Because not everyone who hangs around gay people will grow up to be gay.

Most gay people grew up around tons of straight people, and it didn't prevent us from being flaming fags, now did it?

But little boys that dance in Broadway musicals, well that's kind of two strikes right there. "Dance" and "Broadway musicals." We don't really expect them to grow up to be terribly straight. Metrosexual perhaps. But that's about the most one can hope for.

But having them dance with big huge-fig-leaf-sporting silver muscle guys? It's really too much.

The gayest thing ever.

--E. R. O'Neill