Viva Variety Does It Again!
BY SISTER DANA VAN IQUITY
6 June 2005
The 47th in a series of Viva Variety shows and sixth season of providing the very best in gay and gay-friendly entertainment was held at the ODC Theatre as a benefit for the Immune Enhancement Project, which offers programs from traditional Chinese healing arts.
The show opened with the six-piece string band, The Mercury Dimes, playing a lively hillbilly drinking song on acoustic guitars, banjos, fiddles, upright bass, and lots of whooping. They returned, later to perform more pickin' & :grinnin' and then some maudlin , "Wasted Words" about unrequited love. It was real Americana at its realest.
Host and producer Steve "Silver Pants" Murray' gave us the bad news-that Viva Variety would be taking a little summer vacation and returning in the fall. Then out came one of my favorite burlesque show folk, the Diamond Daggers, a hot but tasteful all-dyke strip show that could have been performed on the "ol' vaudeville stage back in the day. For their first number, these innocent girls were dressed in yellow feather tops and bottoms, resembling chickens, lip syncing the flapper song, "All I Do Is Dream of You the Whole Day Through," with these cute but goofy expressions on their overly painted faces. They broke into a razzmatazz Charleston number and got into some high kicking while making chicken cheeping sounds. As they peeled off their tops to reveal yellow feather pasties beneath, they lipped "1 Love You a Bushel and Peck" while looking and sounding very Betty Boop-like. As Murray promised, later they returned "with different pasties" to do a complete change from their innocent act. They were the six merry murderesses of the musical Chicago, dressed in sexy black translucent negligee and working the dance floor to filth with some amazing choreography. "It was murder but not a crime," they sang with anything but innocence. Look for these darling Daggers on the main stage at the Pride Parade along" with the dazzling faux queen Anita Cocktail.
Velocity Circus has provided many a circus act to the Viva stage, and this time they pulled out the stops with two young Asian contortionists accompanied on cello and a female singer in full-on ornate Chinese garb. The pair of women athletes performed some amazing contortions, balancing on one hand while supporting the other in a backward bend; forming a human yin-yang with their bodies; and sustaining themselves mid-air by nothing more than a balanced thin metal rod with an extended mouthpiece, which they used as their only means of support, clenched tightly between their teeth.
Cabaret singer Bill Cooper had just wound up a successful show at the Plush Room and came to share his bubbling personality with the Viva audience. He. was accompanied on piano by the handsome Barry Lloyd, who he was never too shy to flirt with nonstop. He opened with the Lauren Bacall showstopper, "Alive" from Applause singing, "I feel twitchy and bitchy and manic; calm and collected and choking with panic, but alive!" and followed with lots of clever banter leading to a tender torchy ballad, "It Was You." He shockingly confessed he got all turned on when he saw the tabloids showing Saddam in his tighty-whiteys. "First of all, I could see he was packing some heat, and secondly, as I noted him folding underwear, " I do believe he has a career in retail," he said, "and wouldn't it be just like me to fall for a deposed militant potentate who works at the Gap!" Cooper ended with a very naughty funny ditty, "That's How I Got My Start," about using his sexual favors with various men to get ahead in life.
Aundre the Wonderwoman had quite a different brand of comedy, turning her disability as an amputee into the capability of a comedian, so that it's quite obvious she does in fact have a leg to stand on. "There are advantages to having one leg, because you don't have to be prompt," she explained. People will say, "Well, 1 wasn't. expecting your black ass to be on time anyway!" She added, "But it's not as good as being blind, where you get that cute little dog to lead you around." She was also very political, in the sense of despising Bush and his war. "I used to blame everything on whitey the blue-eyed devil; but now I realize it's all Al Qaeda's fault." She added, "Bush ain't got the brains to lead a parade, let alone a country. But it just goes to prove my theory that any white man can be president. And don't tell me we need to make teachers take tests; I'll do that shit when he can pass! He is single-handedly destroying the myth of white superiority." You can come get your laugh on with Aundre the first Thursday of every month at the San Francisco Comedy Club.
Now what can we say about the conundrum wrapped up in a comic that is Miss Peggy Judy? This Viva favorite claims to hail us from her longstanding gig in the Bakersfield Gift Shop miniatures room where she nightly sings torch songs next to the postcard display stand. This young version of Debbie Reynolds on gin (no, she is not a drag queen; faux queen maybe) claimed that her accompanist (you'll recall Mr. Barry Lloyd from Cooper's set) was her ex-hubbie and kept lapsing into periodic tragically reminiscent trances, especially during her barfly number, "Something Cool". Despite all the histrionics, Miss Judy is quite the accomplished vocalist, as heard in her bluesy boozy versions of semi-old standards like Neil Diamond's "1 Am, I Said," complete with perfect if not inappropriate staccato notes. She is irony wrapped in hysterical tragicomedy, and somehow we just want more of it!
Three members of the cast from Hush Up, Sweet Charlotte, a hysterical send-up of the classic Hush Hush Grand Guignol starring Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland, gave a taste of what is to come at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre starting June 4. They performed the riveting scene where Miriam (acted by Varla Jean Merman a la Olivia) is attempting to console Charlotte (played by Matthew Martin who is Bette) who is about to be evicted and is slowly going mad, with a little help from her so-called friends. If you shuddered at the original horror flick, you will surely shake with laughter at this comedy takeoff. And don't axe me to reveal the shocking ending!!!