Viva's Fresh Pine Scent Of Variety
BY SISTER DANA VAN IQUITY
4 December 2003
Viva Variety is this City's longest running queer variety show, having started in April 1999 by producer/emcee Steve Murray and continuing for 34 shows with over 340 acts helping to generate over $15,000 to some wonderful nonprofit organizations. The 35th in a series bf Viva Variety shows featured their very first classical pianist, fire dancing, the Pine Sol lady, much music, magic, and mania-courtesy of Viva fave Bridget Schwartz. The show at Buriel Clay Theatre benefited CVAV (Community United Against Violence).
The headliner was Diane Amos, who most people would identify as the woman who peddles Pine Sol on TV commercials, but would discover her that night to have a real flair for comedy. Perhaps because she was raised by two lesbian mothers - a black woman and a white Jewish woman. She is soon to be seen in the movie Twisted with Samuel Jackson and Ashley Judd. Amos had plenty of fashion advice, including: "If you're gonna have a big ass, be sure to carry it right." She dished Starr Jones of The View TV talk show fame, because, "you know that lady does NOT shop at PayLess for her shoes. Those babies are $400 at least; now mine are $9.99 (and she modeled her modest PayLess pumps with much pomp)." Of course she joked about the trials and tribulations of being in the spotless spotlight of Miss Pine Sol, recognized everywhere and hounded by the common folk for autographs and cleaning tips.
Bridget Schwartz is a Viva regular, a totally cah-ray-zee comedienne who appears with fellow comics in the ongoing Monday night Queer Comedy series at the LGBT Community Center. This was her 7th Viva appearance, and it's always a treat to witness the latest brand of insanity the Schwartzinator comes up with each time. She apologized for being straight, but added, "It really doesn't matter what your orientation is if you're not getting laid by anybody!" She said she could identify with people who felt they were born in the wrong body. "I don't even think I was born into the right species," she joked. "I feel more identified with a hamster." She said she doesn't hold out much hope for the world. "In fact, I ate my earthquake preparedness kit today," she confessed. She got fired at work because "apparently casual Friday does not mean you can show up drunk with cum in your wig."
Frances8, a quintet indie band composed of amplified guitar, lead guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards, played an untitled original song about waiting. They followed with a wailing "Sometimes We Lose" and then a very flowing "Bird's Eye View." The lead female singer had a haunting, sort of Joanie [sic] Mitchell sound.
Kitty Rose is country music served up old school style at the Hotel Utah. The female lead strummed her "geetar" to pluck out Rose of San Antone and then Sweet Dreams in the style of the late great Patsy Kline. Seth Montfort gives regular piano concerts in a huge mansion on Franklin Street known as the Victorian Englander House in a regular Sunday series entitled "Wild Men and Elegant Encores." That night he treated us to a selection from "The Complete Authorized Works of Gershwin for Solo Piano," playing An American in Paris on an old upright, yet it sounded grand! Bad pun, but great piano playing.
Maureen McVerry, from her cabaret show "Very McVerry," having just finished a run of "Me and My Girl" with the Marin Theatre Company, opened with a scintillating rendition of "Being Alive," the finale from the musical Company. The song speaks of the perennial bachelor who is finally ready to commit to a long-term relationship with "someone to know you too well, someone to pull you up short, to put you through hell, and give you support, for being alive." Then this lovely, genteel, cultured woman sang a song about being a baseball fan and suddenly transforming from a refined lady to a downright fan and suddenly transforming from a refined lady to a downright lowlife broad while cursing at the players on the field, using all sorts of brash insults and unladylike expletives.
Then a magician, a juggler, a comedian, an escape artist, a pickpocket, and a fire-eater appeared. He was all that wrapped up in one man, Robert Strong. Among his other feats was being strapped into a straight jacket by an audience volunteer and escaping through contortion before our very eyes in a matter of moments. He followed this by pretending to hypnotize 4 volunteers sitting close together on chairs, twisting them around, wrapping them together, and eventually removing the chairs to have the men sitting on what appeared to be thin air. I suppose it had something to do with physics, but since I only got a C-minus in college physics, I won't attempt to explain the trick. Kitty Kitty Bang Bang, a dance troupe trio wearing cat ears and sexy, sheer, black and pink lingerie, sensually strutted about the stage to A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody, and did a fan dance a la Sally Rand, famous fan dancer of the '50s. Then they went into fancy chair work, sitting and spinning and working it to I Love Paris in the Springtime. They finished off with a takeoff on a naughty pillow fight - every horny hetero guy's wet dream.
The whole show came to a fiery end. Infinite Kaos from Velocity Circus (a featured troupe of various performers under the big top at Teatro Zinzanni, many of whom have performed on the Viva Variety stage in the past) executed a spectacular fire dance finale. The dancers wore ancient garb from some faraway Arabian land-robes and crowns and many jewels - and began swallowing fire, then twirling fire batons and chains of fire, then balancing flaming swords. It was all very pyro-licious! Mark your calendars for the last Viva of the year, which will be their holiday show on December 16th. Back by popular demand will be the Irrevocably Damaged Peggy L'Eggs, a Viva drag regular who apparently had taken some time off for reparative therapy. Anyway, you don't want to miss this show. Make your reservations now by calling (415) 863- 0741. Do it. Peggy would want you to!