Perverse/Diverse VV 37
BY SISTER DANA VAN IQUITY
29 January 2004
Viva Variety, San Francisco's longest running variety show, now has a permanent home in the Buriel Clay Theatre, 762 Fulton @ Webster (with bonus of a free security-patrolled parking lot.) The first show of the fifth year, number 37 in the series of queer and queer-friendly show, was an eclectic mix of the finest performers from dance, performance arts, physical circus, comedy, theatre, spoken word, and music. That's why they call it VARIETY, don'cha know? Each show is a benefit and this time the beneficiary was Openhouse, a residential assisted living project for San Francisco LGBT seniors.
A group of four barefoot belly dancers from Velocity Circus started things off with some shaking and quaking and clicking of finger cymbals. They slapped the floor and whipped their ponytails around, dancing in synchronized movements to the beat of a drum. They would later return to do an impressive fire act - dancing, swallowing, and playing with fire.
Currently appearing on the Theatre Rhino stage is the hilarious one-man show, Spray, with actor/writer Mike Albo Entertainment Weekly called him "a cross between Sandra Bernhardt and David Sedaris." Before performing, he commented, "I have to say San Francisco is really hot; even the homeless people!" Albo treated the audience to a selection from his play, which he entitled A Really Boring Conversation. He played both parts of two very superficial Valley boy gay airhead guys in a bar, going on and on about nothing, in run-on inflected sentences. Fer shur, okaaay?!
Ronkat Spearman used to sing and play guitar with George Clinton and the Parliaments. This night he soloed on "Didn't Know How Much I Needed You [like the flowers need sunshine and rain]" and "Wings of Fire" with some very soulful singing. Rhythm and blues singer Court Alexander sang "Run Children [Freedom comes tonight]" and another selection, "Not Man Enough," that he wailed out in a wild gospel style.
Houston Allred, star of Viva Variety 31, made his second appearance with a three-word summation of Bush's State of the Union speech: "Y'all are screwed!" He informed us, "I did not grow up in Texas. I spent the first 22 years of my life in Texas, but I grew up in New York." Then he sang his altered version of Willy Nelson's cowboy song, entitled "Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Drag Queens."
Shelley Steward, billed as a new comic ready to test his mettle, has been making appearances at the biweekly Monday Q-Comedy shows at the LGBT Center. In honor of the evening's beneficiaries, he pretended the LGBT senior home was already built and he had taken a tour: "I was especially impressed with the rec room and its ping pong table with a glory hole. Is it true the paddles were provided by Mr S Lealther?"
He joked, "A word of warning - at their socials, do not put your drink down; I did and when I picked it back up someone had put their teeth in it." But I have a word of warning for Steward - AIDS jokes are not now nor will they ever be funny. Lose that in your act! Otherwise, pretty funny stuff.
Betsy Salkind has been a writer for Roseanne Barr, and returned to VV to reprise her hysterical impression of a squirrel chewing away at a cracker, occasionally stopping when startled, eyes- super-focused, cheeks puffed out. She did a funny routine about her cat Bucky receiving a telemarketer call: "I would call him to the phone, but he's occupied right now...licking his ass!" But she went too far with an unfunny impression of the woman who drowned all her children and claimed insanity. The audience's nervous, anxious laughter was proof the tasteless bit should be canned.
Abby Mung from the Alma Esperanza Cunningham Movement executed a winning combination of modern dance, ballet, and calisthenics to a song, "Bring It On," on her ghetto blaster, which she turned off mid-song as if to say, "I'm done now." Strange. Cassia the Aging Diva aka Kathleen Young was introduced as a veteran dancer who has toured the world, but may be a little hard of hearing and hard of seeing these days. Out came a matronly gray-haired woman in dark sunglasses and a belly dance outfit showing perhaps too much skin for that age (therein lies the comedy?), giving out half-hearted bump-and-grinding, but whirling and twirling as best she could. Next she charmed a sock-puppet snake out of a basket. She whipped off her veil and wiped her sweating armpits with the fabric. How attractive! Steve Murray, host of VV, cracked, "Oh man, the Velocity Circus dancers are backstage cringing at their futures!"
Peggy L'Eggs, the irrevocably damaged one (as she bills herself) is a veteran to the stage of Viva Variety. During this appearance the host promised she was off her meds and back in action, which can be a dangerous combination for this totally mad drag queen. This time she was a weird story lady in a children's library, giving a very moving (ahem!) reading of The Gas We Pass, much in the manner of her interpretation of Everybody Poops in an earlier VV show.
Viva Variety is scheduled March 2nd at 8 p.m. as a benefit of Metropolitan Community Foundation. For tix rezzies, call (415) 863-0741. You never know WHAT Steve Murray will be cooking up next!!!