Church Lady Drag

Go To Church. The Cavern Club Theater. 4/16/06.

I was pretty excited to be spending Easter going to what I believed was a church-themed drag show in the basement of a Mexican restaurant with some of the people I've come to consider almost family. It felt queer and appropriate and subversive and wonderful. It was also a great warm-up for our upcoming Backyard Drag show whose theme was to be "High Church."

Sadly, "Go To Church" didn't live up to the appropriateness of the situation. It was more performance art than drag, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in my mind; the real disappointment was that after the first number, it rather lost its theme. It included several numbers and skits that had very little to do with church, including an interesting but inexplicable rendition of "Paper Roses" and an actually pretty funny talk show piece called "Two Jans and a Janet" featuring Selene Luna and the only cross-dressing of the night by Robbie D. The two of them made a great pair, but this closing bit went on a little too long. For the most part, the show felt like one big inside joke and some of the bits were funny but several of them seemed as if they were just filling up time. As this was their first of a series of performances, it felt a bit under-reheased and thrown together. Their next performance will feature drag queen Jackie Beat who I've heard is excellent and thus the show might get better, but personally I was disappointed. I rather suspect each of the performers has done and could do better work. I would have been happy if they had just managed to keep it all church-themed.

The Al Pacino Show

Oscar Wilde's Salome. The Wadsworth Theatre. Brentwood, CA. 4/20/06.

It seems that when this production was in New York, it was publicized as Oscar Wilde's Salome: The Reading. Somehow, the subtitle was dropped in LA publicity and thus I was suprised to see music stands and folding chairs on stage at the Wadsworth. I'm not sure minimalism does credit to Wilde's opulent poetry in Salome (the text of which is available here if you're interested), though the reading does place emphasis on the language and the acting. With nothing else to look at on stage, Al Pacino as Herod and Jessica Chastain as Salome embraced the challenge of commanding the audience's full attention and bringing life to to an extremely lush script almost entirely though personal charisma.

In this particular version, Al Pacino as Herod very clearly stole the show. His spectacular portrayal of a proud and dissolute king kept the audience engaged through long speeches in which all he did was list possessions or boast of his power. He is very clearly a masterful actor who made this role his own, and I feel fortunate to have witnessed his skill in person.

Jessica Chastain in many ways had a much more challenging job in interpreting the role of Salome, and though she was beautiful and compelling in the role, there were moments when the reading style of the performance held her back. To be denied the horror of seeing her kiss Jokanaan's lifeless head made the end of the play strange and abrupt, making her seem more childish and less passionate. Similarly, relying entirely on text instead of connection or touch between the actors made her passion for Jokanaan and her rejection by him seem awkward and superficial. The stilted lack of interaction between the actors did, however, throw into relief the moment in which Salome danced. She stepped out of the reading style and took possesion of the stage and the audience's gaze in a dance that quickly passed from a fairly traditional-seeming (not that I'm an expert) belly dance to a bare-breasted modern frenzy. The dance and certainly her body were compelling, though I think that as the centerpiece of the show, it should have lasted a little longer and transitioned more slowly from sexy to insane.

Overall, it was an interesting but odd production that showcased good acting, but perhaps did not do justice to the spirit of Wilde's text.

My Lukewarm Reaction to the Ahmanson's New Season

CTG announced their lineup for next season. The LA Times reports it here. As the Times indicates, it's rather deficient on new and exciting work. The shows are mostly Broadway imports, including Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf complete with stars Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin and Doubt starring Cherry Jones. I'm a little ambivalent about the whole thing. It's nice, and very convenient, to have some of the most exciting things from Broadway come to LA mostly intact, but it's not exactly inspiring to just be the second or third stop for shows that have already played in New York and London. As our largest and most expensive local theater, I'd like to see the Ahmanson do some new and exciting work, but it matters much more to me what they schedule for the Taper and the Kirk Douglas. I haven't attended either of those smaller theaters this season, mostly because I was so disappointed in Michael Ritchie's decimation of Gordan Davidson's tradition of developing new work, often by queers and people of color, in favor of programming "classics" such as The Cherry Orchard or relying on the names of famous playwrights (David Mamet) and actors (Alfred Molina, Laurence Fishburne) to sell the shows.

In terms of the Ahmanson's season, it actually looks rather inticing, if not really inspiring. The season consists of two classics (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Twelve Angry Men), two of last year's biggest new works from Broadway (Doubt and Light in the Piazza), a new (if not terribly original-sounding) musical (Berry Gordy's Aint No Mountain High Enough), and Matthew Bourne's Edward Scissorhands, which I really do want to see. Though it would be nice to see the Ahmanson do more that's original and exciting, this is a solid season to which I would at least consider subscribing. At least there aren't any holes in the season this time. The whole thing is very commercial, clearly designed to appeal (almost exclusively) to middle-class, middle-aged white people who pay attention to what's on Broadway but don't travel there, and who can affort to go to the Ahmanson. There's absolutely nothing reflective of or particularly relevant to LA or its population, but these are mildly intereting shows that I would rather like to see.

On the Margins

Violet Blue posted today that Patrick Califia recently suffered from a heart attack. A friend reports that he is recovering, but facing terrible medical bills without insurance.

An article by Califia was one of the first things I read in grad school, and I have been extremely grateful for all of his work that I have discovered since. Public Sex is one of my favorite books, a brilliant combination of scholarship and passion in clear, intelligent essays. His erotica manages to push my buttons perfectly, no matter the gender, sexuality, or species of its subjects. I would gladly encourage you to rush out and buy any or all of his books, depending on your taste (tell me if you want a review or recommendation).

But more importantly, this is a reminder that many of my favorite writers and performers are working without a net. There are no health insurance providers and often no retirement accounts, savings or middle-class families to fall back on for performance artists, freelance writers, and sex radicals. Peggy Shaw references her uninsured status in Menopausal Gentleman, and Susie Bright asks for donations so that she can afford to give some of her writing time away for free on her blog. These people provide work of great value in this world, and in doing so are uncared for by our system. Califia deserves whatever people can give him to help ease his pain and provide for his ongoing medical care. Califia's LiveJournal page and his website provide information on how to donate via PayPal or postal mail. Please, do what you can to support him and other other writers and performers working on the margins of regular employment, steady paychecks, and health insurance. Do it so that hopefully they can worry less about money and instead spend their time experiencing life and writing about it, sharing with us as much of their work as possible.

Theater at its Best

Miller, Arthur. All My Sons. The Geffen Playhouse. 3/12/06.

I'm not actually a huge Arthur Miller fan. I understand why he's important and I respect his skill as a writer, but I've never really loved his work. I've read Death of a Salesman and The Crucible a million times each, and I saw The Ride Down Mt. Morgan on Broadway, but in general, I wouldn't exactly rush out to see an Arthur Miller play. I'm more likely to write it off as heavy-handed American Realism, obsessed with fathers and sons and the suffering of the straight, white, middle-class American male. While all these assumptions aren't entirely false, they fail to encompass my experience this evening.

All My Sons at the Geffen was extemely well-crafted in every aspect of the production, and as such it was a truly wonderful experience at the theater. It actually energized me, making me want to see more theater, and left me a bit stunned at the skill of playwright, director, cast, and everyone else involved. A significant portion of what made this play so great for me had a lot to do with a fabulous cast, headed by Len Cariou (Sweeney Todd on Broadway), Laurie Metcalf (original member of the Steppenwolf and most famous as the sister from Rosanne), and Neil Patrick Harris (Rent, Assassins, and of course Doogie Howser). Harris blew me away; his character was the conscience of the play and he appeared from his entrance as both a good, decent guy and a reasonably complex character so that his morality was believable. This man is a truly skilled actor, and I should remember to see anything else in which he performs whenever I have the chance. Len Cariou as the flawed patriarch did an excellent job at seeming lovable even as his morally corrupt actions were exposed. In this, only the second performance, he seemed to be grasping for lines at several points especially in the first act, but he made this stumbling sound more like character-appropriate senility than the mistake that I assume it was. Laurie Metcalf as the mother gave a compelling and nuanced performance that kept the play from being carried away entirely by fathers and sons. Amy Sloan rounded out the main characters of the play with compelling strength and practicality and held her own among these luminaries.

When I say that this play was well-crafted, I mean that everything seems to have been done with skill, passion, committment and energy. Not only the acting, which was fabulous from leads Harris, Metcalf and Cariou to little Sterling Beaumon as the neighbor kid, but even the sets (by Robert Blackman) and the costumes (by David Mickelsen) were extremely well-done with excellent attention to detail. The high-waisted '50s pants caught my attention, as did the full facades of neighboring houses that extended the realism into the wings. Excellent pacing drove to a rapid conclusion that left me a little shocked, but greatful for not having been dragged slowly through Miller's moralizing. Artistic Director Randall Arney deserves credit at the helm of an outstanding production. I highly recommend it, as both classic and timely, but mostly as excellent theater.

Drag for the whole family

Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance. Ahmanson Theater. 4/6/06.

Dame Edna is the giga-star (that much more than a mega-star) drag persona of Barry Humphries. She's a hilarous comedian with fabulously glittery costumes, and I laughed outrageously throughout the show. The performance was well-written, well-paced (it was nearly 3 hours long, but the time flew by!), and funny thoughout. Dame Edna performed songs and dances and fabulous audience interaction, which is not easy in a venue as large as the Ahmanson. It was quite nice to be in the back and thus know that we were safe from being called on by the Dame herself. It's a wonderful show and anyone who goes is sure to laugh until they hurt. I was especially impressed by the full costume change for the curtain call and the animatronic flowers, both of which were hilarious. So go to the show; you'll love it, I'm sure.

I couldn't help thinking throughout the show, however, that this was drag for straight people. It was safe, middle-class, all white, and not very political. Edna performed couples counseling, choosing a nice married couple out of the audience to drag on stage and embarrass. Humphries' bio carefully mentions his wife and children. It's all of the fun and camp and sequins of a drag show without those pesky homosexuals. While extremely queer and fabulous performers like Lypsinka are performing to half-full houses in tiny venues and Vaginal Davis is semi-homeless when she's here in LA, I felt a little guilty that my money was going to support Dame Edna. I felt as if I should instead spend my time and money at The Cavern Club Theater and Backyard Drag supporting local queer performers. And where are the fabulous, famous drag kings, btw?

Film Noir Festival!

This week and next (April 7-16), the Egyptian and the Aero Theaters will be conducting the 8th Annual Festival of Film Noir. They will be showing some famous noir films such as The Damned Don't Cry and some obscure and newly restored films such as Angel's Flight. They especially focus on films set and shot in LA. Some personal highlights include:

The Damned Don't Cry (1950), Saturday, April 8, starring Joan Crawford.

Ruby Gentry (1952), Saturday, April 8, directed by King Vidor. With Charlton Heston and Karl Malden. Tagline: "The story of Ruby Gentry, who wrecked a whole town - man by man...sin by sin."

Beyond the Forest (1949), Saturday, April 8, directed by King Vidor, starring Bette Davis.

Don't Bother to Knock (1952), Sunday, April 9, starring Marilyn Monroe and Anne Bancroft.

No Man of Her Own (1950), Saturday, April 15, starring Barbara Stanwyck.

Most of the showings are double features, so you get a whole evening of double-crosses, murder, and femmes fatales. The full calendar is here. So, anyone want to go to a movie (or two) with me? This might very well be my plan for Saturday night.

Children's Musical Round-up

Dr. Dolittle. Orange County Performing Arts Center. 3/23/06.
and
Honk! Laguna Playhouse. 3/31/06.

These are two familiar stories made into musicals best suited for children, but fun nonetheless. Dr. Dolittle is most memorable for Tommy Tune's performance; he's an extremely skilled entertainer and he carries a musical with a tenuous plot and little else to speak for it. At over 60, Tune's tap-dancing is wonderfully skillful; I would gladly have clamored for more and more. The sets and costumes were also well done (by Kenneth Foy and Ann Hould-Ward respectively) and extremely fun and colorful. Talented twelve-year-old tap-dancer Aaron Burr (yes, really) as Chee-Chee the Monkey also had a delightful tap dancing scene and a charismatic, playful performance throughout the show. Dee Hoty as the leading lady in the show did an admirable job in a role that wasn't thoroughly fleshed-out. The main problem with the show, however, was that its plot was rather tenuous, better for children with short attention spans and little care for continuity, than adults that may want to think about the show even a little.

Honk! had slightly more substance but not a great deal. It's the story of the Ugly Duckling, adapted into a children's musical, including several roles for children. The Laguna Playhouse used it as an opportunity to showcase the students in their conservatory program as chicks, ducklings, and froglets (including some pretty impressive dancing) while hiring adults to take the major roles. This show was also cute and has a little more substance to keep the parents interested. The sets by Wally Huntoon created an adorable larger-than-life watercolor farm. My major complaint here was the costumes, which looked quite low-budget including a few too many sweatpants and tennis shoes for my taste. In the costumer's defense, there were an awful lot of characters to outfit in this production with what was, I'm sure, a tiny budget, and certainly some costumes were better than others. I just don't think sweats are ever really the right choice, and especially with the goslings I had a lot of trouble figuring out what animal the characters were supposed to be.

Both of these productions were light and fun and good for children, but I wouldn't rush out as an adult to either of them. Do bring your kids, though; teach them the magic of theater while they're young and start a tradition of theatrical attendance now.

Review by Proxy

I've been told that Claire Z. at Sacred Fools is excellent. It's based on absurdist Durrenmatt's The Visit. The plot summary is promising:

Singing eunuchs, bizarre butlers, drumming, chanting and much more!

The richest woman in the world returns to her hometown: an impoverished little village enduring an agonizing period of decline. She will open her purse and give her vast wealth to the town, restoring it to grandeur, on one condition: kill Alfred Schill, the man who wronged her years before.

Will they kill him? Absurd... but the town is desperate, and Claire can wait...

CLAIRE Z is a percussive-driven, movement based theater piece drawing from the work of Grotowski and Suzuki, featuring the music of Lou Reed, Simon & Garfunkel and much more.

I hope I can get out there before it closes next weekend!

Vendetta

V for Vendetta.

Seeing V for Vendetta last night with friends inspired a long evening of conversation about the politics of film, comics, and video games, and, of course, politics in general, which is in itself almost enough of a reason for me to see it. Anything that leaves me wanting to talk about it was well done, even if it wasn't exactly the movie I wanted.

I have complaints. V was too conversational, to voluble at the beginning when he should have been mysterious. I wasn't sucked into the world of the film immediately; I would have liked to see more setting established. Evey and V aren't the only things going on in this world, and I would have liked to see more of that immediately, and not just through the TV. Some of the editing was difficult, and not necessarily good.

But by the end, I was completely wrapped up in the film. It did a wonderful job of tying all the plotlines and metaphors together, building to a truly stunning climax. It was a fairly faithful rendition of the graphic novel, editing some subplots out for the sake of clarity, playing up the ties to the contemporary situation, but for the most part following the plan layed out by Alan Moore in the graphic novel.

Moore, however, wants nothing to do with the film. He had his name redacted and refused a share of the profits. He has reasons to be angry, some of which are explained in this New York Times article. In addition to his disputes with DC Comics, who do indeed make a habit of stripping their authors of any intellectual property rights, Moore's objections to film adaptation stem partially from his commitment to establishing graphic novels as a valid and complex medium in their own right, rather than just prototypes for film. His worst fears about film might be evident in an examination of From Hell and how completely unrelated to Moore's dark, literate graphic novel the Hollywood movie turned out to be.

I've read V for Vendetta and I must say that the film in some ways felt more clear, just a little easier, but for the most part very similar. I definitely felt that I knew what was coming every moment. Both were intensely literate, dripping Shakespeare quotes and images of famous artwork, and not at all subtle, trying to force the audience into some realization about life, politics, and revolution.

But will people see this movie? Will they think about it beyond the big explosions? Why aren't people angry? Can they really think it's just a movie, rather than a much-needed political speech of an extreme variety? Perhaps the New York Times Review is an indication, dismissing it all too easily in a show of wit rather than serious consideration. The only sentence in the entire review I agree with is that it "never manages to make this Goth dystopia pop." Although perhaps this one at least deserves some consideration: "The more valid question is how anyone who isn't 14 or under could possibly mistake a corporate bread-and-circus entertainment like this for something subversive." Like this sentence, the whole review is haughty and superior, not for a moment giving the movie credit as a political statement. And perhaps the reviewer is right that within the system you can't possibly overturn it and this film is indeed motivated by profit as much if not more than by art or politics. But I think that the people dismissing this as a facile political statement are wrong. It's saying something that needs to be said, in the 1980s, now, and again: the government is wrong, DO SOMETHING.

Review Long Deferred

faults, lies, and faultlines. Katastrophe. 2005.

When I ordered this CD, I meant to write a review fairly quickly. But with CDs, I tend to want to let them sit in my head for a while, to give myself a chance to figure out when I want to come back to them. And the first time I listened to fault, lies, and faultines, it didn't quite get stuck in my head (with the possible exception of the first song, "The Life." I wanted to listen to it more, understand it deeper, penetrate the lyrics, but I didn't immediately love it. So, taking a month to listen to it occasionally, and to come back to it whenever I wanted, I've discovered exactly how wonderful it is.

There's an amazing level of depth and complexity in this CD, both in terms of layers of sound and layers of meaning. It's a little different than Let's f*ck and then talk about my problems, which I feel does a lot of work toward establishing a persona for katastrophe. This album seems to wrestle more with issues and individual choices, from "Diamond rings," which claims "I'm fine, without those diamond rings attached to price tags. I'd make a nice dad, but I'm not taking any chances in a word that takes advantage" to "all wrong" which says "It doesn't matter if you even like me anyway. 'cause you don't live my life and I don't know what it's like for you. So you mind yours and I'll mind mine and everybody can get along just fine." And katastrophe doesn't back away from trans identity and trans issues in this CD; queer and trans issues are integrated throughout the album, sometimes coded and sometimes direct, but very clearly part of a larger identity and larger issues with which the album wrestles.

The first song on the CD, "The Life," is a collaboration with Shaggy Manatee and Ruby Valentine of Romanteek. The several voices within the song make it a lot of fun, and it's a great song to dance to. The chourses of "break down" and "drop a line" and "read me" similarly compell me to dance and sing along. Other songs feature pointfivefag and jb rap (Juba Kalamka and Jeree Brown of Deep Dick Collective), cindy wonderful of Scream Club, and aggracyst. The entire album is a beautiful balance between multiple layers of katastrophe's unique voice and collaborations that add interesting complementary voices, demonstrating a commitment to a queer hip hop/rap community. It also has a great tension between brilliant lyrics and poetry I want to listen to and fun beats I want to dance to.

And I must mention "fake meat" which is a wonderfully witty rumination on insecurity, both personal and financial. Katastrophe even reminds us that "I ain't proud to let y'all know money come in slow, so dig deep and we'll all sleep easy," which, oddly enough, rather than irritating me that he's asking for money, actually makes me want to send some to him. I think I'll order a replacement for that long lost copy of his first album now. Anyway, I highly recommend this CD, but it took me some time thinking about it before I really fell in love with it. The more I listen to the lyrics, the more impressed I am.

Full Disclosure

Recently, I found myself in a situation I never expected. This blog actually lead to a real world benefit for me. Specifically, Sarafina from the band Lipstick Conspiracy read this post from when I saw them perform at Fresh Meat. Not only did she contact me, which was sweet, but she took pity on my complaints of poverty and gave me a copy of the CD, Don't Tell a Soul, that I never managed to buy when I saw them perform. I was delighted! I'm a huge fan of free stuff, and this CD made me very happy. The only things I have to offer in exchange for this wonderful gift are a mention here on my blog and a review, so even though she didn't ask me to, I promised to at least link to the band's website. For a moment, I felt almost guilty about that. Does this mean I'm bribe-able? Will I promote anything that gives me free stuff? I decided that this was a silly little moral dilemma because:

A. I make no claims to professionalism and journalistic ethics
B. I saw, enjoyed, and linked to the group before they gave me anything
C. Reviewers get free CDs, books, theater tickets, etc. all the time

So, basically, I decided that if anyone wants me to review anything (CDs, books, videos, fabulous fashion accessories, etc) feel free to send it to me. I also accept theater tickets (gladly!). I'd love to get stuff to review. I'd love to be more aware of cool and especially queer bands, performers, etc. So, while I doubt anyone will take me up on the offer, feel free to email me and offer me things to review. I'll do my best to provide thorough consideration, interesting and honest opinions, my performance studies expertise, and appropriate links.

I'm also excited to hear a rumor that Lipstick Conspiracy is in the process of recording a new CD and may be touring this summer. So feel free to check back here (or here) soon for info on when they'll be in SoCal. I'll also be reviewing their CD shortly.

Book Signings

There are two very interesting author tours coming up in the near future.

Sunday, March 26, 7pm
Michelle Tea reads and/or signs (I'm not sure) Rose of No Man's Land at Skylight Books

Leslie Feinberg will be in California speaking and signing hir new novel, drag king dreams

Thursday, March 23, 7pm
LGBT Liberation in Time of War Abroad and Repression at Home
Featuring Leslie Feinberg
with LeiLani Dowell of Fight Imperialism Stand Together
and John Parker of International Action Center-LA
5274 W Pico Blvd, #203
Sponsored by: Leftbooks.com & International Action Center – LA

Tuesday, March 28, 7pm
An Evening with Leslie Feinberg
Transgender Author and Activist
One Institute National Gay and Lesbian Archives

(Feinberg info via thuggery & skullduggery)

You know what this means? It means I'll be buying Rose of No Man's Land in hardback. I have an irrational distaste for hardback books, but sometimes, you're stuck with them.

Another Reason I Wish I Could Date Annalee Newitz

I am completely in love with Annalee Newitz and especially what she is wearing in this picture (via Laughing Squid). Please note the t-shirt with blazer (hot) and especially the matching plaid bottoms. Pants? Skirt? I don't know, but either way, it's pretty darn awesome. I also love that her t-shirt says something, but the only word we can read is "gay." Rock on.

Disclaimer: Annalee Newitz is clearly a genius and writes a weekly column at AlterNet on technology which generally explains and comments amusingly on things about which I had no idea I should care. Go read this week's column on the attention economy. She is my latest internet crush, but otherwise has no connection to me whatsoever and should not be concerned by my mild stalking.

Oscar Roundup

I thought I'd share my thoughts and some of what I've been reading about the Oscars. I am very disappointed that Crash won, although I can't say anything against it because I didn't see it. I didn't see it because I heard mostly mediocre things from my friends who did see it and I know several people who HATED it. Hardly a resounding endorsement. I felt that both Brokeback Mountain and Good Night and Good Luck were execellent examples of what filmmaking could be. These were gorgeous, important, challenging films. Not only did they have something to say, but they had a style that supported and delivered that message in a clear, effective way. Again, I can't say whether Crash fits in this category as well or not.

Instead, I will point you to the LA Times, where James Bates explains the promotion and insider politics behind Crash's win and where Kenneth Turan offers a wonderfully angry breakdown of how Crash was the safe choice. Turan isn't the only one who feels that this decision was homophobic. The Virgina Quarterly Review and Backwards City (via Bookslut) both discuss Crash's win as homophobic and conservative. Cintra Wilson at Salon similarly discusses how the Oscars this year were safe, pandering to the conservatives. Finally, Bill Robinson at the Huffington Post has a slightly creepy counterperspective that I find disquieting but interesting.

I did indeed find the Oscars a bit upsetting. I can't really say for sure that the refusal to honor Brokeback (and Felicity Huffman for Transamerica) was homophobic, but it does feel that way. In fact, it feels a lot like after the last election when 8 states past anti-marriage amendments; it forced me to realize that there is a lot of the country that still hates us. While grand, sweeping, beautiful statements such as Brokeback can be made, people still feel as if they have the right to hate or ignore them just because they're gay.

George Clooney began the night so well, claiming a proud, liberal tradition for the Oscars as politically out of touch in a good way. But then everything about the night fought to contradict him. Even the the horrible, nonsensical anti-DVD rants demonstrated exactly how conservative the Oscars really are. Come on, who watches Ben Hur in theaters?!? For those of us who aren't 92, all of the movies whose 'spectacle' they celebrated we first watched on DVD or on TV if at all. And maybe they should be showing more of the old classic movies at theaters to recapture some of the glory of great film. Perhaps their fight against DVDs should involve making moviegoing an event (and an enjoyable one rather than one about crowds and lines and screaming children and ringing cellphones) or perhaps they should just recognize that they don't get to dictate how and when people enjoy their products. But they shouldn't be lecturing and talking down to their audience in the middle of an awards show. Jon Stewart may know that, but apparently a lot of the Academy does not.

Even 'A Return To Glamour,' which was the theme of the Oscars this year, seems wrongheaded and conservative. None of these movies was about glamour. These were movies with something to say, which was mostly achieved through looking gritty or sparse. It was a refusal of artificial glamour that made them notable. By denying and ignoring that, the Oscars were once again trying to whitewash and hide the real issues.

Cintra Wilson's observation on Salon about Resse Witherspoon as advocating conservative values is brilliant and important. She's a beautiful, young, blond starlet who talks only about her husband and children and her grandmother. She seems unsure at times about whether she was playing June Carter Cash or her own grandmother. She stresses her similarity and identification with the role as a 'strong woman' and a 'real woman.' I'm mildly amused and slightly horrified by a couple of the people liveblogging the Oscars whose first thoughts after Reese's repeated "she's a real woman" comments were, "Is she saying something about Transamerica?" Examples here, here at 10:59 and here in the comments. I suspect she's just dumb and not that cruel, rude, and homophobic, but even the fact that it can be interpreted that way is pretty scary and reason enough why she shouldn't have said it. In this interview from two years ago, she talks about how motherhood has allowed her to play women with whom she can better identify. If this isn't a blatant promotion of conservative values, I don't know what is.

Finally, I'd like to point you to the latest Guerrilla Girls Oscar campaign: The 500-pound gorilla in Hollywood isn't King Kong—it's discrimination against women directors!. They remind us that:

Only 3 women have ever been nominated for an Oscar for Direction (Lina Wertmuller (1976), Jane Campion (1982,) and Sofia Coppola (2003). None has won.

Clearly, the Oscars are and have always been a boys club, and while they like to seem liberal and congratulate themselves, the reality is the same exclusion and discrimination that you see all over.

Another Moment in a Long Tradition of Broadway Orientalism

Bombay Dreams. Orange County Performing Arts Center. Segerstrom Hall. Costa Mesa, CA. 2/23/06.

Bombay Dreams is a musical set in the Bollywood film industry and on the streets of Bombay (now Mumbai). It was a beautiful, lush production with a talented cast, but it was still profoundly problematic. Despite its attempts at authenticity, several moments certainly evoked the orientalist tradition of Broadway musicals.

The good news is that, unlike Rodgers and Hammerstein in The King and I or South Pacific, Bombay Dreams features several people from the culture it represents, both in its cast and among its creators. Composer A R Rahman is indeed a composer for Bollywood films and the romantic leads are played by actors of Indian descent.

In fact, I suspect that a little more familiarity with Bollywood film and Indian culture might actually have increased my appreciation of this musical; a large proportion of the audience was Indian and I would guess that Bombay Dreams has elements of both tribute to and satire of the Bollywood genre that a greater literacy might have given more meaning.

There were some extremely troubling moments, however. My biggest problem is with the role and the treatment of the character of Sweetie (played by (Aneesh Sheth), whose unrequited love for the leading man, Akaash (played by Sachin Bhatt), is unbearably painful. She's a hijra played by a man and fated to die tragically in the end in a rather unnecessary moment of queer containment.

My other concern is the fact that in this touring production, only about half of the performers were of Indian descent. Almost the entire cast was extremely light-skinned, with several people from across Asia playing Bombay natives. Several of the men were apparently African-American Just as the Puerto Ricans in West Side Story are generally played anyone with dark hair, including Natalie Wood, whose parents were Russian.

The strength of Bombay Dreams is its spectacle. The lush production numbers, full of bright colors and beautiful dancing, make this an entertaining show despite its flaws. The Bollywood setting, like the long Broadway tradition of backstage musicals, provide ample opportunities for singing and dancing and the cast does so quite well.

Fred and Ginger with Backup

Never Gonna Dance. Musical Theatre West. Carpenter Performing Arts Center. Long Beach. 3/2/06.

Never Gonna Dance was a fairly inexplicable musical. It has the basic plot structure of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical, Swing Time, but with changes to the plot that made even less sense than the original wacky 1930s musical. With Fred and Ginger, the plot was just an excuse to get from one dance number to another, but Never Gonna Dance lacked the pace and frivolity that made the Fred amd Ginger musicals so much fun.

The dancing throughout the show was excellent; leads David Engel as Lucky and Tami Tappan Damiano as Penny worked really hard and carried the show pretty well, and all of the chorus were extremely talented tap dancers. Every member of the chours got an opportunity to dance a bit of a solo as well as serve as ensemble backup dancers. It was odd, however, the way they adapted songs that were originally Fred and Ginger solos in closeup to production numbers. It drained a bit of the individual personality and chemistry away from the leads.

The performance I saw was questionable at best. There were several technical difficulties including a backdrop getting caught up on an electric and twisted. More problematically, the sound, especially in the second act, was extremely over-mic'd. It made even the leads sound shrill, and it ruined Harriet Harris' solo, showing just how much she wasn't a singer (although she's a brilliant character actress and performed quite admirably in "Shimmy with Me").

Overall, the show was fun, although in no means great. It had its moments, and it had its problems. I think as a concept, it was weak. I'd rather watch the original with Fred and Ginger. Or even a live stage production of the original text, without Never Gonna Dance's tweaked the plot and odd collection of songs.

The Politics of the Closet on Broadway

In this preview of shows opening on Broadway this spring, Charles Isherwood fails to mention that three of the four shows he discusses star lesbians. There's Cynthia Nixon* in Rabbit Hole, Lisa Kron of The Five Lesbian Brothers in her own show, The Well, and Cherry Jones in Faith Healer. Now, their lesbianism is not particularly relevant to any of these shows, all of which seem to mostly be about family and the fact that life sucks, so perhaps it's best that Isherwood doesn't sensationalize by mentioning their personal lives. I'm sure there have been plenty of articles that mention lots of gay men on Broadway without talking about their sexuality, but the whole thing does raise the question of where the line between private and closet falls. Might there have been a reason to mention Kron's history with the Five Lesbian Brothers or the WOW Cafe? I, for one, am glad to see lesbian actresses getting work and I think that sexuality isn't a relevant issue in this particular article, but it did make me think about when you do and don't discuss an actor's sexuality.

*NOTE: The assertion of Nixon's queerness may not be entirely accurate; she seems to have refused to confirm or deny the fact (and she is known to have had boyfriends previously), so she can't really be considered an out lesbian actress.

Orton on Broadway

I'm a huge Joe Orton fan. He's funny and dirty and fabulous. So I was thrilled to hear that The Roundabout Theatre is reviving Entertaining Mr. Sloane. I know Sloane backwards and forewards, and yet I would absolutely love to see again. Ben Brantly's preview of perverse British plays opening this spring on Broadway has reminded me why people go to New York to see shows. I certainly wish I had the money to fly out and see shows periodically. As a matter of fact, I would love to see the Roundabout's whole season (how great would Alan Cumming be in Threepenny Opera translated by Wallace Shawn?)

Are Russian Vampires Better?

Nightwatch. (Nochnoi Dozor). Nuart Theatre. 2/25/06.

I really enjoyed Nightwatch. It's a Russian movie adapted from a the first in a trilogy of novels about vampires, an impending apocolypse, and battles between Good and Evil. Its sequel, Daywatch, is apparently already in theaters in Russia. It kind of reminded me of what Constantine should have been if it had been done right.

Overall, I'd say that the movie was extremely well done. It was dark and intense in a creepy, grimy way. It was like The Lord of the Rings or The Matrix in epic action storytelling, but much less visually crisp and clean. Very Russian, I suspect. The plot was complicated, and not always entirely clear, but less confusing than just giving the impression that there was a lot below the surface that may or may not be revealed. While it wasn't precisely morally ambiguous (it's very clear who are the good guys and bad guys), it was complex, with a rather flawed hero. There was plenty of blood, and the violence wasn't pleasurable and satisfying the way it would be in a summer action movie.

Oddly enough, this particlar film is getting recognition for its subtitles, which are a little more artistic than the standard boring white subtitles across the bottom of the screen, but not unusual enough to be irritating. The editing of the film is also notable, though it's sometimes great and sometimes distracting. It moves very fast, which is mostly a good thing that serves to keep the audience engaged but can occasionally be disruptive, especially in the final sequence.

The movie itself has a pretty strong visual sense and moments of brilliance, including an adorable moment when one of the characters watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a beautifully creepy animal-to-human transformation. Some of the fights were hard to follow, but mostly disorienting in a fascinating way.

The New Yorker review of this film is fascinating. I'm not sure the reviewer actually understood the film particuarly well, but he managed to be quite snarky anyway, putting the emphasis more on his own cleverness than the film. So I'd say don't believe him, although I love the line:

The battle between good and evil, in its messy desperation, feels not like a comic-strip confection, as in “X-Men,” but like the foul-tasting hangover of something true.

If Russian vampire action is your kinda thing, go check it out. I'm totally engrosed and will be seeing Daywatch whenever it makes it over.

A mental break

I'm in the middle of some serious work, but I took a little break to read blogs, and what did I come across? This. Now, normally I wouldn't be looking at the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue to save my life, but I'm fascinated by the retro pinup style of these photos. It makes me happy when 40s and 50s glamour appears in contemporary culture.

(via kinky bitch.)

Whores are great!

Sex Workers Art Show. Northwest Campus Auditorium. UCLA. 2/14/06.

It's a bad sign when you arrive to see the artists leaving the venue ten minutes after the performance should have started. When I got to the show late (traffic), I was hoping it hadn't begun, but I wasn't expecting to find the audience locked out. The show started half an hour late due to extreme technical difficulties, and while I was initially annoyed, the show was more than worth the wait, and they did a great job of rolling with the punches as the sound cut out spontaneously, microphones only sometimes worked, and technology proved generally unreliable. They went on with the show despite everything, and did an excellent job. Each of the individual performers was excellent, and I will try to talk about all of them, though I will sadly be brief about it. This altogether, despite technical difficulties, was an absolutely wonderful, sexy, brilliant, well-organized show and I encourage everyone who can to get out and see it. The schedule is here.

Annie Oakley organized the show and introduced the performers, but I would have liked to have heard more from her about the project, the artists, herself, anything. I want to listen to what this woman has to say.

Once the show finally started, it began with a beautiful dance piece by Julie Atlas Muz. Muz opened and closed the show, with her first piece involving bondange and stripping, and her closing piece entitled "Bloodbath." Both were short, simple, and stunning. She has a beautiful body and she uses it with wonderful skill and expression. She had a rough time with an audience that wasn't warmed up and didn't know what to expect, but that's no indictment of her skill. It was just strange to be cheering loudly for a naked women, whose performance was so clearly beautiful and artistic, especially with a modest audience of mostly queers, feminists, and other people particularly sensitive to exploitation. It took a little encouragement to convince us to be vocal, but once the crowd warmed up, we really did love the performers.

Tralala Farsi Sentiamo really broke in the audience by reading a fun, not entirely erotic piece about sex work. She encouraged us to laugh and cheer, and got a really great atmosphere going.

Scarlot Harlot, "one of the foremothers of the sex workers' rights movement," performed a great Dworkin/McKinnon spoof, then stripped to her fabulous unrepentant whore self and performed a song about her weight. Her performance was fierce and fun and fabulous, and she's really a force of nature.

Michelle Tea was really the one I was there to see. I've read several of her books, and I think Rent Girl is the greatest thing ever and I would recommend it to anyone. But, despite my adoration, I had never seen Michelle Tea perform. I had seen her in person, at several of Katastrophe's shows and once just on the streets of San Francisco, but I'd never heard her read. It turns out she's an amazing performer as well as an amazingly talented writer; she chose a great, hilarious selection from Rent Girl and she read it perfectly with wonderful clarity and expression and animation. She's another one I would just love to listen to her talk for as long as she was willing to do so. I can't wait for Rose of No Man's Land and I hope she does a book tour!

Simone de la Getto of Harlem Shake Burlesque performed a fun burlesque strip number, and then sang a song, for which the music cut out in the middle and she continued fabulously. She is quite a performer, and although there were scary moments as she gave audience members lap dances, in general she had a great connection to the audience and a great performance in general.

The adorable Bridget Irish perfomed a wacky reverse strip tease in which she emerged onstage naked and in secret agent fashion she had to find articles of her clothing stashed all over the theater. Despite the stripping of other performers, there was something much more disconcerting about a naked lady running through the theater. It felt like a real triumph and a relief when she managed to find and put on her bra!

Juba Kalamka of The Deep Dick Collective performed a fascinating song/performance piece entitled something like (I may be wrong about this) "Requiem for a Nigga Ass 'Ho." It was an intense, serious piece displaying his musical range and skill.

All of these performers were selling merchandise, and I wanted it all. I bought a Sluts Unite T-shirt for the sheer audacious fabulousness of it (I'm not sure if/when I'll wear it). But I kind of also wanted a Sex Workers' Art Show t-shirt (the one with the mud flap girl); if I weren't quite so broke, I totally would have bought that, too. And I came home later and realized I should have also purchased Rough Tongues: Femmes Write Porn as a V-day present to myself, so I ordered it from Amazon. I will probably also break down and purchase Scarlot Harlot's book, Unrepentant Whore as well; I bet it's great. Overall, for a free show it cost me $21, but these women deserve my money; they were pretty darn awesome. If anyone outside of LA reads this, and the show's coming to your town, by all means get your ass there and bring plenty of cash. You'll be glad.

Transitional Violence

Imani Henry. B4T. Highways Performance Space. 2/9/06.

I'm glad Imani Henry is telling his story. B4T is an interesting and valuable look at the pains and difficulties of three "Black, masculine, female-bodied people." These are stories that need to be told, and I am very much glad that I heard them. Henry is a talented performer, doing a fairly good job at establishing separation between 3 similar characters and doing an excellent job at keeping the audience engaged throughout. He talks skillfully at the intersections of race, class, gender and sexuality, and those positions and perspectives are important.

What bothered me about this piece, however, was its conceptualization of transition. B4T didn't seem particularly intended to educate the viewer about transition in any way, which is fine, but it consistently depicted testosterone or medical transition as a violent rupture in the speakers' lives, and I'm not entirely comfortable with that. For LaShawnda, the most visibly female-bodied of the three characters, the decision to transition was configured to suggest suicide. For Keith, who seems to be post-transition but reminiscing, he discusses how he could never go back, couldn't or wouldn't go to a high school reunion or see the friends who knew him to be a girl however much he was one of the guys. For Imani, the violence is in his inability to explain an impending transition to his dying grandmother, the enforced silence that comes from a not entirely accepting family.

The other thing that bothered me about the piece was its profound rejection of the term 'lesbian.' While it's perfectly understandable that these characters who don't consider themselves women might have problems with being labeled 'lesbian,' the revulsion for the term wasn't carefully teased out in this piece. Keith's absent interviewer, placed in a strange position of authority by her absence and seemingly elevated posiiton, was apparently a lesbian and Keith asked her 'why can't you tell your own stories,' creating and exacerbating a distance between himself as subject and the interveiwer as academic, lesbian, and seeminly priviledged. There was an extremely difficult moment, almost unexplored, in which Keith said that his girlfriend of 10 years was a lesbian, and it was profoundly unclear about whether that meant that she still identifies as lesbian or just that she did when they met. And either way, how does he feel about that? How does she feel about that? These absent female partners were pushed into an extemely awkward erasure throughout the piece in that both Kieth and Imani acknowledged girlfriends, but failed to represent them or even talk about them coherently Similarly, the butch and FTM person of color slide show that bridged the gap of a costume change featured several photos in which the subjects were kissing girlfriends, but those girlfriends were similarly unrecognized.

The success of B4T is in performing 3 different characters telling their stories in relationship to race, gender, and identity. The failure was in showing why and how these were three different characters. Why and how weren't they 3 aspects of Imani telling his own story? Would it have been more powerful speaking from a place of explicit identity rather than semi-autobiographical fiction? I would have liked to see more about where and why these characters divereged and conflicted. Why and how were each of them before T? I found myself wondering how long Henry had been performing this piece. How distant is the moment before T? How has this piece changed as his body has changed? Why not tell a story after T? B4T is a step in the right direction in terms of making more explorations of identity available and raising issues related to gender and sexuality. There are a lot more steps out there, and I'm excited to see them all.

I think I've got a V-day plan!

It appears that The Sex Workers' Art Show is going to be in LA on Valentine's Day. First of all, the universe is clearly trying to kill me; I'm far too busy for ANOTHER show that I must see. Second of all, why did I not know about this? Third of all, I must go. How could I miss Michelle Tea and Scarlot Harlot?

Here's some copy from the show's website:

The show is a critically-acclaimed eye-popping evening of visual and performance art created by people who work in the sex industry to dispel the myth that they are anything short of artists, innovators, and geniuses!

The wildly-successful cabaret-stlye show is hitting the road again to bring audiences a blend of burlesque, spoken workd, music, and multimedia performance art as well as a visual art display that travels with the show. Intelligent and hot, disturbing and hilarious, the performances offer a wide range of perspectives on sex work, from celebration of prostitution and sex-positivity to views from the darker sides of the industry.

The '50s were sooo kinky!

Monroe, Marilyn. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. 1953.

Wow, this movie was strange and different and even kind of hot. I totally loved it. Monroe called her boyfriend 'Daddy' throughout the movie, which sounds so weird to contemporary ears. You certainly don't hear things like that now. Also, there were strange situations involving a young (pre-adolescent) boy actually admitting he had a sex drive and kind of ridiculously hitting on Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. You might sometimes see that today, but it's something that freaks us out much more these days.

The thing that really got me was the bondage chandelier. In the "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" dance number, there were, for no apparent reason, several girls dressed in strips of black fabric or leather and chains holding up candelabras. It seemed very kinky and completely unnecessary. Is this the evolution or a mimickry of a Bugsby Berkeley dance number?

The movie in general was delightful, but odd. Though it rather scandalized me, this demonstrated that the '50s, at least in this manifestation, were better about being open (and not guilty) about sex than movies are now. Richard Dyer (Heavenly Bodies) argues that Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is the least appropriate of Monroe's movies for her personality, and I sort of understand that. Lorelei was an interesting character, but Monroe's breathy innocence seems inconguous with Lorelei's cynical greed. It makes her seem really creepy and manipulative, which is odd because you're sort of supposed to sympathize with her.

Anyway, I completley enjoyed this movie. It was fun and amazing, and the campy Jane Russell and the naked athletes scene featured in The Celluloid Closet was especially wonderful. I totally see why Monroe was seen, according to Dyer, as the embodiment of a pure and natural sexuality breaking away from conservative morality. I love it!

Seriously, though, despite all of the feminist film theory I've been reading, I was very much seduced by the spectacle and visual pleasure of this film. The costumes were lush and gorgeous, and Monroe and Russell were a striking and dynamic pair. And with Russell's height and sharp features, the two of them would make a lovely butch/femme couple. And of course, the utter, ridiculous, nonsensical, outrageousness of the whole plot and situation of the movie kept me broadly entertained.

Not sure I know what to say about this one

Pappa Tarahumara. Ship in a View UCLA Live. Royce Hall. 2/4/06.

I tend to be suspicious of anything where a synopsis or review claims that their work is "capturing the enduring wonder and indescribable beauty in all things", and I'm still rather suspicious after seeing this performance. Pappa Tarahumara is a Japanese modern dance troupe that is, I believe, vaguely butoh-inspired. I have nothing like the vocabulary and knowledge to provide an informed review of their performance, and I make no pretense to understanding it, but I will say that I felt fairly intellectually engaged. Pieces of it kind of reminded me of Merce Cunningham work I've seen (or at least the bicycle bit from Variations V). The LA Times Review provides a decent thrashing of the work. The production was cool and grey and the effect overall was rather mind-numbing, although I didn't know what was going on, so I was paying fairly close critical attention. There was some gesture toward a plot and setting, but it was unclear and poorly developed. Supposedly the production was a representation of a seaside town in the 60s, but I'm not sure how I was supposed to know that other than the fact that the program told me.

I did have a rather large problem with the piece in terms of gender, though. There were some interesting gender issues, including the fact that one (or possibly two) members of the ensemble were men wearing dresses, which was curious in a good way. The bad thing, however, was that the production seemed incredibly phallocentric. There was a giant pole in the middle of the stage, for goodness sake. And twice, men climbed the pole to perform, but women never did. There was also a man (not in a dress) who sat upstage center for almost the the entire performance in a clear position of patriarchal authority. I found him rather suspicious. And, most of all, there were two women who seemed to represent aspects of female sexuality, and whenever either of these two women, the one with the curly hair and the one with the bob, did anything suggestive or overly wild, they were punished with sexual violence. There were two moments in which the woman with the curly hair was roughly embraced by a man whenever she got close or flirtatious with him and she had to break away violently. The girl with the bobbed hair, at some point near the end of the show, spent a few minutes with her dress up showing the audience her underwear for no apparent reason. Immediately following that, she was practically nailed to some boards upstage. The gender and sexuality in this performance was profoundly disturbing to me.

The most frustrating thing about the performance was its false ending. There were several points where it felt like it was building to a climax and a conclusion that never came. At about an hour and 15 minutes into the production, they were in the middle of something that felt very much like the end. It was about my limit of endurance and the music seemed to be reaching an ending and I was all ready to start clapping and watch them take their bows, but NO, without giving the audience any kind of mental break they continued into a whole new section where everyone changed clothes and they did it all for no apparent reason. This new section seemed in no way dramatically different from any of the other work that came before.

Reasons to love a musician

I ordered katastrophe's new CD, fault, lies, and faultlines as a little birthday present for myself and it arrived today. I haven't even listened to the CD yet, and I'm already in love with it, and katastrophe, because with the CD I got a handwritten note thanking me for the order and telling me "I hope that you enjoy the CD and you find a special song." It's a small gesture, but I found it totally sweet. It made me want to give him more money, or at least to order a new copy of Let's f*ck, then talk about my problems (a CD which I loaned to a friend and never got back). Maybe after the next paycheck. Anyway, I look forward to listening to fault, lies, and faultlines.

"There's nothing wrong with being alone"

"What gives you the audacity to believe you've failed if you can't make life or stop death?
Because I was taught if I was a good girl and worked hard I could" - An American Daughter

Wendy Wasserstein died. I'd been hearing for a while about her cancer, but it's still a great loss. She was only 55.

Her New York Times Obituary calls her a "Chronicler of Women's Identity Crises," which I believe does her a disservice, though the article itself below the headline does a much better job of explaining exactly why and how she mattered so much. She was one of the few women playwrights who consistently, sucessfully had plays produced on Broadway. And she wrote strong roles for strong women. Isherwood describes her as a predecessor to Sex in the City, but she dealt with the lives of women who, though equally privileged, felt very real to me rather than fanciful romantic constructions of wealth and glamour. Female friendships, family relationships, feminist politics, and single motherhood suffused many of her plays. I regret thoroughly that I have never actually seen a production of one of Wasserstein's plays, but as an undergraduate in college I read them and fell in love with them.

I will honor her by reading one of her plays tonight, and I hope others will consider doing the same. She was a wonderful female voice in a theater that remains very much a boy's club, and she deserves recognition as a major American playwright. She won a Pulitzer Prize and wrote roles for which actresses like Lynn Thigpen won Tonys, but I never studied her in a drama class and only discovered her when assigned a scene from one of her plays in an acting class. She, like many other female playwrights, was marginalized and underestimated because she wrote about women. I hope now she will get the recognition she deserves for her bold theatrical discussions of gender in our society today.

UPDATE: Jill Dolan writes a beautiful post about the ambivalences surrounding Wasserstein's feminism of the priveledged. She calls her assimilationist and questions her for not being more critical, but raises the question of whether or not that's a bad thing. It's a beautiful reflection on memorializing someone about whose work you've been critical in the past.

A happy birthday story

This story made me very happy. Yay!

L!: The Lesbian Musical!

The Breakup Notebook. Hudson Backstage Theater, Hollywood. 1/27/06.

Apparently, lesbian musicals are a good place to meet gay men. Or at least the audience was filled with them this particular night. The Breakup Notebook was a totally fun, funny, lesbian-themed musical and there was a lot of laughing out loud throughout the show. The music was fun and happy and generally really well done and the cast clearly worked hard and were quite talented. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole evening.

While everything layered on top of the basic structure of the play was pretty fun and fabulous, something about it deep down bothered me a bit. I think it may have gone through too many rewrites and its strayed a long way from its original concept. The whole "Break Up Notebook" of the title appeared in the first scene, but was never mentioned again. The play had nothing to do with a notebook.

What really bothered me, however, was the main character. She was constructed as this lipstick lesbian everywoman, but I didn't really sympathize with her. I frequently found her neurosis more annoying than endearing, and the conclusion. Heidi Godt performed admirably, but the conclusion in which the character takes charge and finally dumps a girl feels more like a therapy session than a dramatic accomplishment. Rather than learning to be independent, the character ends a relationship because the girl she's seeing doesn't want a commitment. Basically, the whole play builds to a very conservative celebration of monogamy.

Much more interesting than Helen, however, were Patrick Bristow as Helen's gay best friend, Bob, and Melody Butiu and Jacqueline Maloney as Helen's lesbian friends were wonderful. Each delivered a nuanced and hilarious performance. I was more interested in the saga of Monica and Joanie's wedding than I was in Helen's tribulations. Monica (Melody Butiu) played the only even vaguely butch role in the whole play, and she did so masterfully. Patrick Bristow as Bob was wonderfully funny but not horribly stereotypically campy, which was nice. The only problem I had with him was that in the hilarious "Chicks and Dicks Bossa Nova" in which Bob and Helen make fun of the stereotypes of lesbians and gay men respectively, Bristow does a great impression of a lesbian, including many stereotypes that could apply to Helen, but then Helen neither mocks Bob effectively nor evokes stereotypes remotely similar to Bob. She mimics circuit queens and twinks, while Bob is a nice gay nerd with glasses.

Christine Lakin gave stand out character performances, especially in her rock star solo, "I'm on Fire." The only problem was that compared to Helen, she looked to be about 12 and thus the whole scene had a weird dynamic. I wondered what it would have looked like to have that role played by someone a bit more butch and less manic.

Speaking of butch, this show wasn't. This was clearly promoting the L-Word version of Los Angeles lesbians, all with long hair and too much makeup. The only conceivable relationship within the play seemed to be very vanilla, very monogamous, very conservative. Even the supposedly butch Monica ended up getting married in an L-Word reminiscent tight-fitting girly suit.

So while I've complained a lot about some fairly nitpicky issues related to this play, the music is great, the performances are fabulous, and I spent a large portion of the evening laughing out loud. Even though it bothers me a bit politically, I still very much enjoyed the show and would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun queer-themed night at the theater.

Sound and Fury

"Teenage Papi: The Remix." Butchlalis de Panochtitlan. Highways Performance Space. 1/26/06.

Watching the butchlalis develop is like a relationship. There was that first flirtation in Akbar oh so long ago. Their first Highways show was a casual party hookup, when we were both too drunk and fumbling to know better but it ended up being hot anyway. This show had the awkwardness of a hot date, long after that one night stand. The things that went wrong before went better, but there's still a lot of communication and mutual exploration that needs to happen.

The butchlalis are some pretty hot boiz, and this time they manage to carry the whole show all by themselves. There were high moments and low moments, some awkward scenes that were a little flat, but overall the show was fun and wonderfully sexually charged. The two pieces right before intermission, "Enema" and "BDSM" were quite kinky, which was challenging to watch.

Many things about this show improved from their last performance. The pace, especially at the beginning, was stepped up to make the performance flow and music maintained the energy between scenes. The video seemed to be more effectively integrated with the live performance. Some of their pieces were much more clear, though they still have a tendency to be abstract rather than direct about what they're trying to say. And may of the pieces are static, with too much emphasis on words detracting from their hot macha physicality.

The butchlalis claim to be interested in connecting their performances with the geography of the gendered and racialized city, and that also came through a lot of their pieces more clearly this time. Gentrification and the changing landscape of "Los Scandales" (LA) became a more vivid in the connection between lesbian softball and Chavez Ravine, and in the metamorphasis of a Chicana Lesbian club into a punk club. Their excavation of Redz as a lesbian bar was fascinating, although a strange note on which to end the show.

Anyway, I highly recommend you head on over to Highways and enjoy the butch stlyings of these little papis while they last. I highly suspect that Friday and Saturday nights will have the rockin' and enthusiastic audience that the Thursday show lacked and these bois will definitely have you squirming in your seats with all of their mind-fucking performance action. I would gladly have gone home with any of these bois, especially when they were brandishing cocks and whips. Hot.

99 Cent Spectacle

Roht, Ken. Route 99: Orange Star Dinner Show. The Evidence Room. 1/13/06

The 99 cent show is an Evidence Room Holiday tradition, and I hear that it is always fabulous. This year's version is quite spectacular. It was fun and in general an amazing experience. The concept behind the show is that the sets and costumes were made from materials donated by the 99 Cent Only stores. This included A LOT of aluminum foil on the sets, and the costumes seemed to be made mostly from tablecloths or shower curtains, something strange and plastic-y anyway. While this all sounds like a weird concept, the show itself was wonderful. The plot was wacky and campy, the huge cast was quite talented, and the show moved incredibly quickly.

Now the exciting thing about the production was that it really was a dinner theater show. As in, you had the choice of paying an extra $10 for a meal with the show. The four course meal (appetizers, salad, chicken, and dessert) was wonderfully tasty, though sitting onstage eating while people were dancing around you was a little awkward, especially at first (they cleared the appetizers before I really felt done with them). And those of us having dinner really were in the middle of the show, including being frequently asked by cast members whether we liked the meal or not. While this was a little strange, the show itself was worth awkward moments of audience participation.

I highly recommend this show, though if you don't like audience participation, you might not want to eat dinner there. But if you're not shy, go ahead and do it; the food is quite good. The cast was wonderful, singing and dnancing their hearts out through a strange and silly, but totally fun plot. The show I attended was sadly underattended (they had a sold-out run before Christmas, but I'm not sure that it's doing as well after the holiday). So the show is extended through the end of the month, and rush out to see it while you can. If nothing else, the fabulous wigs and strange plastic costumes are enough attraction to make it worth your while.

Sister Insider

Carr, C. On Edge: Perfromance at the End of the Twentieth Century. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1993.

On Edge is a collection of C. Car's essays for the Village Voice, mostly covering performance art. Ironically, her introduction claims that underground performance peaked in 1985, but all of her articles come from the late '80s. The articles are incredibly valuable as documents of the work of Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, Annie Sprinkle, Chris Burden, etc. And a few of the articles are quite brilliant and really well-written (I particularly enjoyed "Splendour in the Crass" and her pieces on Mapplethorpe and censorship). Overall, I very much recommend this book for those who are interested in '80s performance artists.

I did, however, have a problem with a lot of Carr's writing. While I appreciate the immense value of these essays as a cultural record, I didn't quite enjoy her tone. She seemed to be trading mostly on her freindship with these artists. Her attitude verged on the superior and condescending, invested more in demonstrating how hip and in with these artists she is rather than thoroughly examining the work. There's a strange way in which these articles are not reviews and aren't really analysis, they're just a strange, not always complete description. Carr seems to be trading on her insider status and the cache of the 'bohemia' about which she writes, but doesn't quite capture or even seem to understand the energy and the politics that animated these performances.

Intellectual and Erotic Stimulation

Bright, Susie. Mommy's Little Girl: On Sex, Motherhood, Porn & Cherry Pie. New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 2003.

I've been reading Susie Bright's blog for a while now, and I generally enjoy it very much. She is often interesting, clever, and insightful with a wonderful combination of useful information about the world of sexuality and culture and delightful tidbits from her personal world. In fact, I get enough pleasure out of Susie Bright's blog that I felt like maybe I should be supporting her in some way. I did donate an almost insignificant amount to her "change jar," but as a grad student not actually making enough to pay for my schoolbooks, I thought that the least I could do was buy a couple of her more recent books to offer me some delightful diversion from the history and theory that I should be reading.

At first I was dubious about Mommy's Little Girl; the last thing I wanted was my favorite liberal, nonmonogamous, radical sexpert doing was telling me all about how cute her daughter was or how great it was to have a nuclear family. Bleh. But Mommy's Little Girl is nothing like that. Susie Bright remains as fun and brilliant and insightful as ever, and this book contains some truly delightful tidbits. Her reflections on the 1940s pinups by Alberto Vargas were vibrant and wonderful, though dimmed by the fact that images she referenced could not (for money and copyright issues, I'm sure) be included in the book and were difficult to locate online. While the first section of the book does include several essays on different aspects of motherhood, Bright reveals herself to be the cool liberal mommy that one might imagine without preaching proper parenting in any way. A later section of the book includes an tiny little travelogue in the form of a book tour diary and Bright's succint description of her visit to each city was clear and insteresting and beautiful. I do have a question, however; in one of the final essays of the book, Bright mentions seeing 'her' brand of vibrator, condom, lube, etc. By 'her brand' she means the ones she has been recommending for years. While I'm well aware of her promotion of the Hitachi Magic Wand in terms of vibrators, why do I have no idea what she was talking about in terms of condoms and lube? Did I somehow miss these in earlier writings, or disregard them as irrelevant to my life in some strange way? If I go back and reread your older books will I find them, magical recommendations buried somewhere among your insights? Because of this reference, I feel like I need to know. What are Susie Bright's favorite condoms and lube?

One thing that suprised me greatly was the amount of reflection on Los Angeles in this book. Considering that Bright lives in Northern California and geography and travel aren't exactly the main subjects of the collection, her insights about my current home are both brilliant and tragic. She describes LA as an "illusion-factory incarnate" and notes the tyrrany of perfect femininity that is part of the local culture. But it was heartbreaking and true to read "There is no love here! Anyone can get laid, but no one can have a realtionship. Everything is ephemeral; passion doesn't last...When you live in a town that's based on the values of a stage, what do you expect? I don't know how to fall in love in LA anymore, either." I'd very much like to believe that the desolation and illusion are not all there is to LA, but I'm not so sure.

The magic of this book, despite the bits with Los Angeles (and New York certainly doesn't fare any better), is that it is joyful, hopeful, celebratory throughout. Even in Bright's reflections on the death of a good friend, her writing is life-affirming. Bright takes such obvious pleasure in friends, family, sex, and cherry pie that she communicates that joy and openness to her readers. This book made me want to dance, to scream, to make love; anything to appreciate the simple pleasures of the world that are so profound, yet so easily neglected. The book made me fall a little more in love, both with Susie Bright and with the world.

Junk Reading

This Winter Break, I have read Terry Pratchett's newest paperback, Going Postal, Cory Doctorow's Eastern Standard Tribe (look for a brilliant post comparing these two sometime soon), Jaime Hernandez's Love and Rockets #13, Chester Square, a graphic novel called Charm School about a teenaged lesbian witch, Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, and Lucifer book 3, A Dalliance with the Damned. For those of you keeping score that is TWO scifi/fantasy novles, FOUR graphic novels, and absolutely NOTHING academic or relevant to post-WWII theater. Eep.

This article, however, makes me feel much better. Just call me a book slut!

New Year, Not so Resolute

I'm not a big one for resolutions - I'm too undisciplined in general, and it always feels a little trite somehow. But over a very late brunch on New Year's Day, I made some sweeping statements that would actually be fairly nice to follow through with throughout the year. They included:

1. More Brunch! I think this is an excellent resolution. There are many, many brunch places in Los Angeles that I would love to explore and I always love suggestions for new ones. While Toast is always wonderful (though I love the sandwiches as much as if not more than the brunches) and you can't beat House of Pies, I would love to find new and exciting favorites. I've been to the Griddle once and would love to go back. There's a Jinky's by my house that I've never been to. We keep meaning to go to Prasadam in Silverlake. I hear Bread and Porridge is great. And then of course, there's always potluck brunch with my friends, which is an excellent thing to do at any time.

2. Explore LA. Going to San Francisco always makes me long for cheap and easy and amazingly good Indian and Mexican restaurants in LA. They must exist. I have no idea where. I want to find more of the tasty, kitchy, wonderful holes in the wall throughout Los Angeles. Perhaps I should keep a list of places I'm meaning to try so that I'll have them when we've got no idea where to go or what to eat. Again, recommendations always welcome.

3. Get out of Los Angeles. No, I'm not moving anytime soon, and I don't mean going to Orange County to visit my parents, but there are a lot of fun places to explore both near and far. I'm hoping to get to Chicago for a conference or two, and up to San Francisco once every few months. Maybe I'll be able to go to New York for research over the summer. I hope to go up and visit friends in Santa Barabara sometime soon. A recent day trip to San Luis Obispo for wine-tasting and exploring was and excellent start on the wacky daytrip with friends motif, which I love.

I feel like these resolutions are fun and do-able. And there will, of course, being no keeping track so I can't feel guilty about them. But they all encourage spending time with friends, which is always excellent and a high priority in my life.

Fluffy but fun

Wilson, Sandy. The Boyfriend. dir. Julie Andrews. Orange County Performing Arts Center.

This is a 2005 production of a 1950s musical about the 1920s. Talk about fun with historical displacement! Julie Andrews made her Broadway debut in The Boyfriend in 1954. She directed this version for the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, from which it began a national tour. The show itself was fun and interesting, and though it had some problems, overall I realy enjoyed it. It was cute and sweet, and the music was upbeat and really stuck in your head.

The fact that Andrews, who played the female lead, directed the show, seemed evident in this production. The moment that that character, Polly, appeared on stage, the whole thing seemed bright and cute and really made sense. Jessica Grové as Polly gave a particularly excellent performance. She managed to be a sweet, innocent ingenue without being obnoxious about it. I found her perfectly charming. When she wasn't around, things felt a little off. That might have something to do with the way the play is written, but to me the ensemble was confusing; they were neither full and unique characters, nor a unified group of backup dancers. They were Polly's schoolgirl friends and their boyfriends, and two of the girls had their own songs, but nothing distinguished the others from each other and it felt kind of weird.

Another problem with this production was the set, which was adorable and cartoony and bright and fun, but it felt like it was trying to fill up a stage that was too large. The result of this strategic space-wasting was that the whole production felt too small for such a big space and especially such a large audience. But really, this is a fairly good production of a silly, fluffy little version of the 1920s. While it would never qualify as great theater, it was quite diverting and very pleasant and I encourage anyone to see it, especially if you're in the mood for a pretty, well-paced escapist fantasy.

America's Next Top Lesbian: Follow-up Interviews

Hot! Out Wesleyan Lesbian Kim Stolz talks to The Village Voice, The Advocate, and AfterEllen.com about her experience on America's Next Top Model. I'll gladly admit that I only watched the show because of her and that I stopped watching the moment she was eliminated. For her sake, and the joy of seeing a tomboyish, almost butch, girl on TV, I put up with the atrocity of all of those other girls, most of whom were particularly idiotic, and the inanity of listening to Tyra Banks talk. While Kim's not always polished, she sports good solid just-out-of -college liberal politics and a general intelligence that makes her interesting to watch. I can't wait to see what she's up to next

What I'm doing for my Winter Break:

A Collection of Random Ramblings

I hadn't been reading blogs for most of last quarter, but now that winter break has set in, I've become completely nocturnal and have been catching up on the wit and wisdom out there in the blogoshpere. I'll share some of my favorites among the things I have learned:

A lovely new find is Beth Spotswood, who amused me with her review of the Brokeback Mountain viewing experience, and delighted me by saying 'hi' in the comments to my post. When I subscribed to her feed, my newsreader for some unknown reason downloaded the last MILLION posts, and I actually read them all. The process was suprisingly fun, and I highly recommend her.

Violet Blue recently posted her list of The Top 10 Sexiest Geeks of 2005. The whole thing is lovely, and I do indeed love sexy geeks, but my favorite discovery was Annalee Newitz. Not only is this a totally cute picture, but I had no idea she was anything other than a standard aspiring academic. How cool is it that one of the people whose book I read for class last year actually understands and writes about technology. Based on her response to King Kong, I'm totally excited to read her forthcoming book, Pretend We're Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture. I love it when academics become cool writers.

The Hammer museum here in LA, which is currently displaying the first half of the Masters of American Comics exhibit (MOCA is doing the later half), will be putting on a puppet rock opera in February. Awesome.

What's even cooler than a puppet rock opera? Zombie super hero comics! Marvel asks one of the great questions of our age, positing: "an alien virus has mutated all of the world’s greatest super heroes into flesh-eating monsters! It took them only hours to destroy life as we know it—but what happens when they run out of humans to eat?!?" We'll see if they manage to develop a story that goes beyond a cool premise, but I'm curious.

John Waters and Peaches

A John Waters Christmas. UCLA Live. Royce Hall. 12/17/05.

I went to this event expecting it to be fabulous, but not really knowing what it would be like exactly. If John Waters was involved, it was bound to be interesting at least.

It began with a good long opening performance by Peaches, who completely rocked. It was a weird show, because the audience was in no way warmed up or prepared for a crazy sextastic punk rock extravaganza. Peaches herself was completely awesome and put on a rockin' show, but she should have been performing in a slightly smaller venue with more alcohol and fewer seats. I totally want to go see a more intimate show of hers sometime soon. Rumor has it she has been showing up/performing at random bars/clubs throughout LA all week, which is awesome. The absolute best thing about her performance, which was generally fabulous, was the fact that she perfomed a whole song about the Hanky Code complete with male and female topless backup dancers. I love that such a song exists and I must own it! For the last song, "Fuck the Pain Away," the audience rushed the stage and acted like it was a real rock concert. Peaches Rocks!

The John Waters part of the show was one big Christmas-themed stand up routine. He was absolutely hilarious and totally engaging and generally wonderful. It was a riff on the things he would like to recieve as Christmas presesnts (obscure books and DVDs) and reminiscing about being poor and stealing things around Christmas time. Because really, what's more Christmassy than stealing? He even did a Q&A session at the end, which I think no one was expecting and yet he managed to answer even the most inane questions with interesting stories and comments.

This whole event was strange and wonderful and I totally loved it. I'm so glad I managed to buy tickets to this event. Even the audience was a wonderful collection of young, crazy Peaches fans and sometimes older but no less crazy John Waters fans. There were men in skirts and eyeliner, all sorts of cute queer women to drool over, and in general some of the most fabulous clothing I have ever seen. There's just no way to express how much I want to own a purple velvet top hat.

P.S. Defamer linked to this extremely elaborate Hanky Code guide which makes me wonder if it's comfortable to walk around with a teddy bear in your back pocket?

Gay Cowboy Roundup

I actually managed to get to Brokeback Mountain not long after it opened. I would have gone opening weekend, except that was completely SOLD OUT because it was only playing in ONE THEATER! What were they thinking?!? This is LA; we're not afraid of gay cowboys!

As for my own review, I loved the movie. I thought it was beautiful and devastating. I feel that it was extremely well done on all sides. I'm not sure how I feel about it politically, what with the whole 'we're manly, manly men' aesthetic in which Heath Ledger is a Man of Few Words who suffers his internalized homophobia in silence. But it's a beautiful story adapted with skill and compassion, and for that I love and respect it very much. And yes, I was sobbing.

I've recently read some great commentary on the movie, though, and that's what I want to share. First, read Beth Spotswood report on the experience of seeing the movie in San Francisco. It's delightful. And then, Susie Bright takes on the conservatives and supports Brokeback Mountain as a political statement. Both of these things make me very happy.