Showing posts with label Charles Busch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charles Busch. Show all posts

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Charles Busch in Cleopatra!!!

Last night I checked off an item on my bucket list:  Seeing Charles Busch live onstage in one of his original plays.  For those of you who do not know him, he is legendary (in certain circles) for being a truly wonderful wit, playwright, satirist, and actress.  He's been a major inspiration for me as an artist, and while I was lucky enough to catch his cabaret show at 54 Below a few months ago, I had yet to see him in one of his plays (plays that include Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, Psycho Beach Party, The Lady In Question, and Die! Mommie, Die!) .  Charles is famous for paying tribute to Hollywood epics of the past, and to the legendary ladies who starred in those classic films.  I've admired his plays on their own merit, without ever having seen them performed, and been able to play in a few of them locally in Austin (always with the awareness that I wasn't doing "the real thing" as these were pieces written for a very specific group of people, their dynamics, their sensibilities, and their skills).  Seeing one of these plays was something I feared I'd been too late in my arrival to New York to do, but I am happy to say that he is still putting up these irreverent, flashy, underground pieces of theatre that are equal parts camp and pathos.  Tickets to Cleopatra at the historic Greenwich Village gem, Theatre For The New City, are worth grabbing while you can.    When last I checked, the show had been extended due to very high sales, so if you want to see it, make haste.

You'll see some grand story telling, some really talented Broadway performers, and may even catch a star sighting (Nick Adams was in the audience when I saw it last night) but most of all, you'll get the privilege of seeing Charles Busch shining as only he can.


Saturday, July 18, 2015

3 Drinks and a Chanteuse

Thursday I headed over to 54 Below and caught Charles Busch's cabaret show That Boy/That Girl.  And, since the last time I'd gone out to the theatre with my dear friend Leslie I was nearly thirty minutes late to meet her, this time I gave myself plenty of time to get there.  We had a 6PM dinner reservation, and I arrived in plenty of time to saunter casually in, take a seat, order a vodka soda, and take in the setting.

It feels very posh and expensive, all red and gold, drapey and dim.   It's what a friend of mine used to call "chi-chi poo poo", which I've since made my own (and that's "ch" as in chic, not chick).



It won't surprise you to know there were a lot of queens in this place.    They started filing in and making jokes to the waiters, responding when asked "Can I get you anything tonight?"  "Yes, you can get me that hunk of a driver in delivery truck outside!" There was a lot of name dropping and dishing, and I of course loved it.  What I wouldn't have given for super human hearing.

Pretty soon Leslie arrived, we ordered, the lights dimmed, and out stepped Charles Busch.   I have to admit, I was a little apprehensive.  I had discovered Charles Busch when I was in my early twenties and I stumbled across a copy of his play The Lady In Question, a parody of 1940's classic war propaganda films.  It focused on a beautiful, but self centered violinist, who was not interested in politics and was traveling through Europe on a musical tour.  Charles had written the part for himself, and the photos in the book showed, not the clownish drag I had come to expect, but a glamorous leading lady.  That play opened up a whole new world of possibilities to me, because it said you could do drag, and in your own way, with your personal observations as a man who loves them, raise up the female stars and archetypes of that era for reexamination and praise.  

I'd played a couple of women myself at that point, and was always upset by or dismissive of the one's who played women in order to mock them, or to wear a kind of mask that allowed these performers to let loose their anger and rage with the safety of a female mask.  I wanted to step into these women's shoes for awhile and show the person within, not to mock, but to pay tribute, and to highlight the ridiculousness in ALL of us, as people.

Here was someone who seemed to be doing that, and doing it very well.

After that, I read and saw as much of his work as I could get my hands on, and watched a fascinating documentary entitled The Lady In Question Is Charles Busch, which follows his career, his art, and captures his essence as well as anything else I've seen.  Suffice it to say, he's kind of an artistic hero of mine, and heroes have been known to topple from their pedastles.  

I needn't have worried.  He is a charming raconteur, a delicate interpreter of music and lyrics, and he has a wonderful way of playing the drama behind a song, playing the opposite of the meaning that might have originally been intended to bring new depth.  He's not mawkish, or artificial, but true and authentic.  He's steeped in the femininity of this character, and his/her sensitivity.  I say "character: because, while Charles is himself on-stage, he is still performing himself. It's that fine line of practiced revealing, and very carefully structured intimacy that cabaret is.  As an artist he is a bit of a "magpie", taking the shiny bits of art and glamour and making new works of them, and living in them so fully that they actually become him, and he them.  And he has such a sharp, crisp humor delivered with dead pan technique. It doesn't feel l like an act, but it does feel like this soul found these old films at an early time of life, films that expressed the things already felt, but also further revealed himself to his own eyes, in a way that maybe nothing else had before or since.

 It's a very intimate show, a show in which you are let into the heart and soul of a person, bravely and adeptly.  Leslie, who was not as familiar as I was with his work, said that within moments of his arriving on stage she knew she was in good hands.  I couldn't have said it better.

There's one last chance to see That Boy/That Girl on July 23rd.  



Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Summer's Eve...

It's a balmy summer evening in Brooklyn, just past eleven, and it seemed like a nice time to jot down some thoughts, so I washed the dishes, made myself a nightcap (oh yes I did) and put on summer music.  To me, summer music can be languid like the Flamingos doo-wop cover of I Only Have Eyes For You, or it could be anything by Astrud Gilberto, that music seems meant for summer, or even big band hits and toss in some Jeff Buckley.  Truth be told, I'm not sure what exactly defines summer music, but I know it when I hear it.

It's strange how malleable our emotions are, or does it speak to the power of music, that a certain song can come on and it makes me feel a very particular way?  I don't mean "that song that he and I listened to when we" fill in the blank.  I just mean the way certain songs can make you joyful or whimsical or melancholy.  Right now, I'm missing my friends... Mark, Meg, Julie... my folks, my little dog...and I know I'll see them again, but I sure do wish they could all be with me here now.  Of course, now I get to be with my friends Kirk and Heather, and Leslie, and Melissa and Kathleen, and I couldn't be more grateful.  Every decision has a trade off I suppose.  The trade I've made is so I can be close to opportunity and creativity, and the energy that this town has.

It's funny, but it doesn't feel at all like Los Angeles.  In LA I would hide what I did for a living.  I would never tell anyone that I was in a show or that I sang, or what have you.  And every time I heard someone talking about their new head shots my stomach would churn and Id become a caustically bitter bitch.  I guess, in LA, it was just so easy to say your were performer.  Anyone could get head shots and dream of fame and fortune or reality tv stardom.  But the theatre?  You ain't doing it for the money, that's for sure.  So if you are doing it, you must really love and be devoted to it.  At least that's the way it feels.  So when I hear someone talking about their auditions as I'm typing away on my computer at a coffee shop, or planning an indie music video, it feeds me.  Makes me feel a part of a community in a way that LA never did.

Another thing about New York.  I know an agent helps.  But it's not required that you have one to get into an auction.  I couldn't even get seen in LA.  Everything I got was because of who I knew, my friends who trusted me and knew that I would deliver something.  I was really grateful for those times, but of course it's nice to win a job from a stranger, and what they see right in front of them in the moment.

Tomorrow I'm seeing Charles Busch at 54 Below in his cabaret show That Boy/That Girl.  Admittedly, there was a moment when I thought I wouldn't go, as money is something I need to keep track of, but... Mr. Busch has written some amazing things in his lifetime.  Psycho Beach Party, Die Mommie Die!, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, among others.  And his approach to drag is the kind I appreciate and understand.  Yes, it's about looking good, but there's something under the surface... he brings an intelligence to drag, a devotion to the great ladies, that really resonates, and he channels that spirit and glamour like no one else.  It's an incredible talent.  And when someone like that, someone I identify with and take inspiration from, is performing a cabaret show, it's a good moment to not only listen and enjoy, but to learn.  So I'll give you an update tomorrow or the next day for sure.


Cursive

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