Cheerful Ode to Lemons of Literature:
Lola Ogunnaike, The New York Times
............................................................................................................
Channeling the Fame and Folly of an Icon:
Charles Isherwood, The New York Times
............................................................................................................
The Passion of the Crawford:
David Finkle, TheaterMania.com
............................................................................................................
Lypsinka Is Harriet Craig!:
"
an event worth commemorating!" Ben Brantley, The New York Times
............................................................................................................
Paved Paradise:
"
[John Kelly as Joni Mitchell is] at once laughable and eerily compelling."
Stephen Holden, The New York Times
............................................................................................................
Endangered Species:
"
[Brenda Bergman is] the demigoddess of off-off-Broadway."
Branden Judell, Detour Magazine
............................................................................................................
Sing Low, Sweet Love:
"
[John Kelly has the] high style of a great song interpreter."
Stephen Holden, The New York Times
............................................................................................................
Dr. Julia Wonder: Let Me Change Your Life:
"
the bleached and bouffanted Miss Wonder is a gas
"
Kent Fuher, NEXT Magazine
<< click the numbers to the left to read the reviews.
"Cheerful Ode to Lemons of Literature"
The New York Times May 17, 2005
by Lola Ogunnaike
Celebrating clunky sentences and mixed metaphors, self-indulgent prose and just plain old bad writing, Lit Lite, a weekly literary series, invites performers to select and read from their favorite bad books. And so one evening last week at the Chelsea restaurant Elmo, Greg Walloch, a stand-up comic, chose to deliver passages from two novels by the actor Ethan Hawke, "The Hottest State" and "Ash Wednesday."
"Man, when I first met Christy - and this is no joke, a clichι but no joke - it was like my heart was literally stuck on my esophagus," Mr. Walloch read from "Ash Wednesday" as an audience of more than 40 groaned and giggled. It was soon revealed that Christy is a woman with a posterior so "dynamite," that, "if you looked at her from the back you'd swear she was a black chick." Mr. Walloch, who is white, deadpanned, "That happens to me all the time."
Since the series began in February, more than 40 books have been skewered. A $5 cover charge is imposed and, because of the subject matter, heavy drinking is encouraged. Each session tackles a different subject, from sex to self help. At one event the ballet dancer Robert La Fosse poked fun at his autobiography, "Nothing to Hide." Earlier this month, in keeping with the theme "Women's Problems," performers read excerpts from Rosie O'Donnell's free-verse poetry blog (onceadored.blogspot.com), "Yvonne: An Autobiography," by the actress Yvonne De Carlo, who played Lily Munster in the television series "The Munsters," and Eve Ensler's "Good Body." Tonight, under the banner "Difficult People," Jodi Lennon, a comedy writer, will present "Hold My Gold," a hip-hop how-to guide for white girls.
Lit Lite is the brainchild of Kevin Malony and Grady Hendrix, both of whom stage productions for the Off Off Broadway theater company Tweed. Mr. Hendrix began the evening with a recitation from "Mission Compromised," Oliver North's military thriller.
"I am unfortunately one of those lonely sad people that reads a lot," said Mr. Hendrix in an interview, "and I've always been drawn to bad books." Asked why he prefers cringe-inducing texts to works from the literary canon Mr. Hendrix said, "Good literature is a little bit boring and precious." He pointed to Jonathan Franzen's "Corrections" and the works of David Foster Wallace to illustrate his point, saying he would rather curl up with "I Was a White Slave in Harlem," the autobiography of the drag queen Margo Howard-Howard. Speaking of slavery and drag queens. Originally, Flotilla DeBarge, a statuesque drag queen who bears more than a passing resemblance to the talk show host Star Jones, was to read that evening from "Swan," a novel by the model Naomi Campbell. Ms. DeBarge and Mr. Hendrix decided that while Ms. Campbell's book was awful, it was not gripping; instead they opted for Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Resplendent in a mud-cloth tunic, miniskirt and heavy makeup, Ms. DeBarge struggled through her opening. "Sorry you all," she said, "my eyelashes are giving me some trouble." She rallied and read passages about Topsy, the incorrigible slave child. But it was the maudlin chapter in which little Eva, in all her golden blond glory, dies of consumption that really had the crowd in stitches. "I want to give you something that, when you look at, you shall always remember me," Ms. DeBarge said, delivering lines in a syrupy voice reminiscent of Scarlet O'Hara: "I'm going to give all of you a curl of my hair; and when you look at it, think that I am in heaven and that I want to see you all there." Not to be outdone by Ms. DeBarge, Sweetie, another man partial to women's clothing, sauntered to the stage sporting a red-sequined dress and a blond bouffant that would easily put Marge Simpson's to shame. Sweetie had chosen to share bits from "Sarah," J. T. LeRoy's disturbing novel about a 12-year-old transvestite hooker who plies his trade at truck stops.
Reveling in the tale that features a toothless pimp, a pedophile and a call girl named Pooh ("not like the bear," Mr. LeRoy writes), Sweetie continued to gleefully flip through "Sarah" long past her allotted 20 minutes.
Florent Morellet, owner of the popular meatpacking district diner Florent laughed through much of the show. "You know we could be doing this for centuries," he said, "There are so many bad books - it's an endless gold mine."
Mr. Walloch said that his next reading will be from the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. "Everyone just looks at the clothes and the models, but have you read that thing?"
Mr. Hendrix, who helps choose many of the featured texts, said organizing the event has been harder than he expected. "To pick something that's bad and bad enough to be entertaining is really a lot of work."
A Lit Lite reading takes place every Tuesday at 9PM at the lounge at Elmo, 156 Seventh Avenue, between 19th and 20th Streets, Chelsea, (212) 337-8000.
"Channeling the Fame and Folly of an Icon"
The New York Times May 1, 2005
by Charles Isherwood
Chill out, Liz. Back off, Bette. Get lost, Roz.
Most of the movie goddesses who regularly snarl and snap on the CinemaScope screen that is the face of Lypsinka will have to cool their heels for a bit. Miss Joan Crawford has taken up full-time residence on this postmodern billboard, at least temporarily, and she's not looking for co-stars.
Lypsinka, the voiceless alter ego of the actor and writer John Epperson, has won a devoted following by throwing madcap parties in which the greatest (and strangest) moments in screen-queen history are allowed to share the same stage, indeed the same taffeta dress and glittering accessories. Previous shows have been rich stews of celluloid camp re-enacted by Lypsinka with the dedicated precision of a Kabuki actor and the brassy verve of a showgirl.
For his slighter but still tasty new show, Mr. Epperson has decided to allow Lypsinka to commune more intimately and at length with one of her spiritual forebears, to go backstage, as it were, and bring forth, for the delectation of their mutual publics, the real Joan Crawford. The woman, not the icon.
Or at least the public woman, as channeled through Mr. Epperson's theatrical persona. Yes, "The Passion of the Crawford," which runs through May 22 at the Zipper Theater, presents a knotty meta-theatrical challenge from the get-go. The title page reads: "John Epperson as Lypsinka as Joan Crawford in 'The Passion of the Crawford." That's a lot of layers of identity, but, as usual, once his chores as curator and collator have been dispatched, Mr. Epperson cedes the stage to the ladies.
The centerpiece of the performance is a re-creation, or rather an interpretation, of a live interview Crawford gave at Town Hall in 1973, part of a series of audiences with grande dames of cinema history put together by John Springer. Mr. Springer's role in the proceedings is lip-synched by Steve Cuiffo, although Mr. Cuiffo's formidable skills in this difficult art will probably go unappreciated.
The opening minutes are strange and mesmerizing, a poignant psychological drama in which a star unaccustomed to unscripted public appearances struggles to assume the expected persona. Crawford's answers are curiously vague or off-point, and punctuated by grunts, pauses and hesitations that are given sly, often hilarious emphasis by Lypsinka.
When Crawford admits to nervousness, her effusive interviewer tries to prop her up. "But you've gotten a lot of courage over the years, haven't you?" he asks. "Yes, we grow in spirit and wisdom," she begins, latching on to the role of a goddess dispensing advice to mortals. But then comes this: "And I was fortunate to have a husband who told me we were going into thunderheads before the captain of the ship told us. And I said, 'We are?' Uh, so I learned . . . after he died . . . I learned to tell myself we're going into a thunderhead and then the captain announced it, you see, I was ahead of the captain again."
We do not quite see, which is half the fun. But the interview does not really evolve into the kind of morbidly ghastly performance that jackals like to salivate over. Crawford goes on to discuss, more coherently, the long trajectory of her career in Hollywood, which encompassed both the dawn of the talkies and the dismantling of the studio system.
Lypsinka, grandly attired in a black suit, silk stole and a truckload of costume jewelry, gives a precise physical translation of the overriding tone - sincerity verging on sanctimony. The eyelids slide to a suspicious half-mast when an awkward question is fielded. The eyes moisten with assumed innocence, the smile grows demure when Crawford discusses the behavior of her co-star, Bette Davis, in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?": "Uh, Bette is of a different temperament than I. Uh, she has to yell every morning. And, so, I just sat and knitted."
When the subject of family arises ("I believe that the reason most of the kids are on pot and other junk is because they don't have enough love or discipline at home"), Mr. Epperson and his director, Kevin Malony, mischievously interrupt the proceedings to splice in a recording of a Christmas Eve radio interview from decades before, in which Crawford speaks of instilling a spirit of generosity and sacrifice in her children. Little Christina and Christopher are heard burbling happily about all the wonderful toys they will be forced to give away. (Hence "Mommie Dearest.")
Mr. Cuiffo provides an unnecessary curtain raiser as the Amazing Russello, a magician of (intentionally) limited skills. And the performance also includes re-creations of Crawford reading a pair of truly dreadful pieces of poetry, like the nauseatingly inspirational "Desiderata," accompanied by syrupy harp arpeggios, of course.
These are less appealing than Lypsinka's pointed but never vicious evocation of Crawford with her hair down (metaphorically speaking), waxing philosophical on the lost glory of Hollywood: "The dignity and beauty of the Academy Awards, I must say, has been lost," she pontificates. (And that was back in 1973.) Dignity and beauty are perhaps not the precise words to describe them, but Miss Crawford's own contributions to movie history will never be entirely forgotten, certainly not as long as Lypsinka is around to repackage them for consumption by new generations.
"The Passion of the Crawford"
TheaterMania.com
by David Finkle
John Epperson, appearing as his alter ego Lypsinka, has always delved into crazed womanhood for his groundbreaking shows. In raising lip synchronization from a parlor trick to an art, he has incorporated a sizable dollop of Joan Crawford's affect. The Passion of the Crawford is devoted entirely to the Oscar-winning actress who was born Lucille Le Sueur, tried Billie Cassin as a screen moniker, then landed on Joan Crawford and stuck with that name through thick and thin.
There was plenty of both: the years at Warner Brothers, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and as an independent agent, the periods when she went from hit flick to hit flick and those during which she was considered box-office poison. This is the woman who took on certain perceived duties of Hollywood stardom as no one else ever has. Although she was a strict and perhaps abusive parent, she never ceased believing that fans were the ones who put her on top and kept her there. As a result, she was famously good to her supporters. Crawford had a reputation not only for regularly corresponding with her fans but also for inviting them into her home and joining them in cleaning her bathroom.
Because of her convictions, Crawford agreed to be interviewed by public relations man John Springer on April 8, 1973 at Manhattan's Town Hall. (This was just after Marlon Brando had been given an Oscar for The Godfather.) The talk was part of a superstar series that Springer, a well-known movie nut, was emceeing. It's this interview, which can be accessed on the Internet, that Epperson does verbatim in The Passion of the Crawford with Steve Cuiffo lip-synching as Springer but looking like early-television personality Robert Q. Lewis.
Passion, which appropriates Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ title to good comic effect, is something of an appropriation all the way around; it's akin to the work of visual artists like Sherrie Levine, who replicate the recognizable works of predecessors. During the relatively brief program, Epperson appears as Crawford in the most astonishingly understated manner, displaying his impeccable lip-synching techniques. He mouths Crawford's lines without introducing irony into his behavior. He doesn't spoof Crawford in any obvious way; he's simply playing Crawford playing herself.
That concept is what makes this show superlative. The master impersonator distinguishes his work by adding facial expressions and gestures that cleverly match what Crawford is saying while, at the same time, commenting on what she created out of herself. Throughout, the star's sanctimony is paraded as humility. "I live for today, preparing for tomorrow," Crawford says in response to one of Springer's questions; Epperson gilds such utterances with the smallest self-satisfied moues while constantly manipulating a red handkerchief.
Although the Springer one-on-one is the spine of Epperson's endeavor, he also interpolates at scattered intervals a Christmastime interview that Crawford did, plus some sound clips from at least one of her four appearances on the Hollywood Palace TV variety hour. Occasionally, there's singing, as if Crawford is having eerie flashbacks. And there's a segment in which a harried Joan has to answer a string of disruptive telephone calls. The latter conceit has always been a favorite bit for Epperson followers, and he doesn't let them (us) down this time around.
Neither will Epperson advocates be disappointed with the work of his usual creative team. Kevin Malony directs with the kind of attention to detail that is the hallmark of any Lypsinka outing; undoubtedly, he's been a big help with all the by-play involving Cuiffo as Springer. Nathan Elsener has designed the simple set, making sure that a bottle of Crawford's beloved (by marriage) Pepsi is prominently displayed on a small table. It's never touched and is only obliquely referred to. Dan Rucks has put together a Crawford montage that precedes the star's arrival. (Make that "the stars' arrival.")
Lypsinka's look -- worked out with great care -- is a cunning collaboration. Nothing is merely for show. Ramona Ponce has designed a form-fitting black dress with a bejeweled neck piece, and there are three black-and-red wraps with which Crawford contrives to wow the crowds. As always, Louis Braun has done Lypsinka's make-up, making sure that the studied Crawford lips are as properly exaggerated as the lady desired. Paul Huntley has designed a wig with its bangs drawn back like parentheses, and Grady Hendrix has provided the rings that Crawford wears like a prized hub-cap collection. (Curiously, the background music that Epperson uses is the theme from The Loretta Young Show.)
Before the Crawford-Springer chat gets underway but after the montage of Crawford doing costume tests, an amiable magician billed as The Amazing Russello comes out. He pulls off a few tricks, one of which is making a handkerchief appear, change colors, and disappear. What, if anything, Russello's turn has to do with Crawford only becomes apparent when the actress arrives and eventually produces her own red handkerchief. Well, abracadabra! Epperson, who thinks of everything, begins the evening with a conjurer in order to make the super-smart point that what the audience is about to see is illusion, Hollywood-style. It's an inspired idea, and this is an inspired show.
"As I Lay Lip-Synching"
Variety August 25, 2003
by Charles Isherwood
Nervous collapse has never seemed as alluring as it does in Lypsinka's latest show, a solid hour of emotional meltdown that is the giddy delight of a sleepy summer theater season. Even that hip-hugging strait-jacket the performer models in the show's opening moments has an undeniable chic, worn as it is above a leg-baring skirt composed of layers of green fringe.
The hilarious disconnect between the idealized poise that once betokened a real lady and the emotional distress all dames are heir to could be called Lypsinka's stock in trade. Her scrupulously correct maquillage (credit to Louis Braun for re-creating the look of a classic Irving Penn model) and exquisitely tailored costumes (here by Bryant Hoven) frame a face and body that are continually being bombarded by demons of lust, envy, despair, rage and other extreme emotional states. The contrast is played to the hilarious hilt here, as our impeccably correct heroine ricochets from girlish delight to hard-boiled cynicism to frenzied horror, mostly caused by the virus that is "l'amour, l'amour."
The voices are, of course, not the lady's own and the lady, for the uninitiated, is no lady: She's a multitalented fellow named John Epperson. Epperson is a master at orchestrating deranged little arias of angst from snippets of movie dialogue ranging from classic camp (generous, and warmly applauded, doses of La Dunaway in "Mommie Dearest") to imponderably obscure. One of the most choice, and curious, cuts from this performance is a recording of makeup tips and other advice to young ladies delivered in a smooth voice that suggests a 1950s TV hostess on a high dose of antidepressants. Epperson's delivery matches the slightly disquieting tone perfectly. (Useful note for theater critics: Wear a pair of long evening gloves, "and you're apt to find the play better." Must try that sometime!)
As usual, transitions are sometimes accompanied by bursts of stabbing strings in the style of Bernard Herrmann, accompanied by wide-eyed looks of horror, the face framed by hands clenched in various hyper-dramatic poses. Another favorite Lypsinka motif is the endlessly ringing telephone purveyor of bad news, it mostly appears, from the increasingly distraught manner in which it is answered.
Everyone's favorite moment of over-the-top screen diva emotionalism is probably in here somewhere. There's Gloria Swanson preening in "Sunset Boulevard," Bette Davis griping in "Beyond the Forest," Piper Laurie recalling the devil of lust in "Carrie," Joan Crawford suffering stoically in I forget what, Elizabeth Taylor losing control in "Suddenly Last Summer" and "Butterfield 8," just for starters. Some underemotionalism gets a look-in, too: I think we heard from Sharon Tate in "Valley of the Dolls." But a dry list of selections can't suggest the brilliant manner in which Epperson stitches these morsels of dialogue together, and it's also impossible to describe how exquisitely he mimics or distorts the emotional tone of every last sigh and syllable, adding a thin, glossy layer of mockery that is always affectionate, never derisive.
The show is not all devoted to celebrating the various ways in which movie heroines have been done wrong and got their own back. There are generous musical diversions, too, starting with one of the more celebrated acts of showbiz desperation: Ethel Merman's famous disco album, represented by "There's No Business Like Show Business." Other rarities include Lauren Bacall croaking out "But Alive" from "Applause," and Carol Burnett chirping "You Mustn't Be Discouraged" from the little-known Jule Styne/Comden and Green show "Fade Out Face In."
The moral of that ditty is a lesson all of the evening's put-upon heroines should take to heart: You're never so low that things can't get worse. In which case, the best advice is to emulate Lypsinka's approach to matters of the heart, which might be summed up thus: No humiliation is too great, no fit of hysterics too painful, to justify the cardinal offense of letting the mascara run.
Set and lighting, Mark T. Simpson; costumes, Bryant Hoven; wig stylist, Mitch Ely; makeup, Louis Braun; soundtrack selection, Epperson; soundtrack engineering, Mercer Media, Alex Noyes. Opened Aug. 13. Reviewed Aug. 22. Running time: 1 HOUR, 5 MIN.
"The Mailman Always Comes Twice"
New York Times Friday, November 15, 2002
by Neil Genzlinger
You will not here learn the following details about the current production
at the Chelsea Playhouse:
- Its full title.
- The lyrics of a song it features that may or may not be about barn-loving birds.
- The use made of a common tropical fruit.
- What exactly is depicted during an outrageous scene staged atop a counter..
The show, presented by Tweed Theaterworks through Nov. 24 as part of a
series it calls Fractured Classicks, is a ribald parody of the 1946 film,
"The Postman Always Rings Twice" and its 1981 remake. The noun and verb in
the title arent the only things that have been changed in this tale of
adultery and murder in a diner. For one, the part played by Lana Turner and
Jessica Lange in the films is here played by a guy.
Hes Jeffery Roberson, but hes better known as his drag persona, Varla Jean
Merman. Varla has the Lana look pegged pretty definitively, including the
legs except that she is, relatively speaking, huge.
If Varla makes a fine diva, it is Bradford Scobie who makes the show. He
plays a rough wanderer who happens by the diner and falls hard for Varlas
character.
In the first film, John Garfield played this role with a preposterous
woodenness; Mr. Scobies nonstop skewering of that is priceless.
A viewing of the 1946 movie beforehand may enhance the "Mailman" experience,
though the film noir cliches are so well established that no prior exposure
is necessary. As for the 1981 version well, the only reference point you
need is its famously steamy tabletop love scene between Ms. Lange and Jack
Nicholson.
How "Mailman" dismantles that is simply hilarious a terrific, if
indescribable, bit of staging by the director, Kevin Malony.
Uh-Oh, Its Wire Hanger Time
"Lypsinka Is Harriet Craig!"
New York Times
by Ben Brantley
It was said that you could hear the sighs of relief among movie audiences of
1930 when Greta Garbo uttered her opening lines in "Anna Christie," her
first talking picture. Garbo, it turned out, could not only talk but talk
the way she looked, with a deep, exotic melancholy that matched her presence
on the silent screen.
Now, 68 years later, another glamour goddess has crossed that same Rubicon
from voicelessness into speech. And if her appearance on the stage of a
nightclub called Mother in the meat-packing district of Manhattan isnt
quite on the scale of Garbos debut in the talkies, it is nonetheless an
event worth commemorating. Lypsinka, the flame-haired performer who has made
a career out of mouthing the words to mostly obscure pop recordings of the
1950s, has found her own voice and is willing to share it with the world.
The occasion for the metamorphosis is a musical drama (well, sort of)
entitled, "Lypsinka Is Harriet Craig!" There is a challenge in that title,
since for the kind of person who is a Lypsinka fan there has always been
only one Harriet Craig. She was embodied by Joan Crawford in "Harriet
Craig," the 1950 movie adaptation of "Craigs Wife," George Kellys play
about a selfish, compulsively neat housewife.
What could Lypsinka, the alter-ego of a man named John Epperson, have been
thinking? Was she going to break her years of silence just to do a Crawford
imitation? Any old drag queen could pull that off.
But Mr. Epperson knew what he was doing. The tall, serpentine Harriet Craig
of this silly but smart production, directed by Kevin Malony and adapted
from the movie by one S.P. Ellbound, does not look like the mid-period
Crawford, who was all sharp edges and gridiron shoulders. She doesnt sound
like Crawford, either. Well, sometimes she does, a little; sometimes she
sounds like Katharine Hepburn, too.
Mostly, though, she sounds like one of those vintage Hollywood actresses who
seems to have just left her diction lessons and is doing her best to project
classiness. Sometimes its just all too confusing, remembering whether to
pronounce "vase" with a short or long "a." Whats a socially ambitious girl
to do?
This sliding style of speech delivered, it should be noted, with imperial
arrogance goes further than any literal Crawford impersonation would in
evoking the style and psychology of the movie and its era. And it reminds
you that in such earlier shows as "Lypsinka! Now It Can Be Lip-Synched," Mr.
Epperson was never a classic drag queen, impersonating famous females.
Instead, what he was moving his lips to, while striking the appropriate
Vegas-headliner poses, was a medley of recorded and often forgotten voices
that suggested a spectrum of ideas of womanhood from an earlier time.
In a similar way, his "Harriet Craig" becomes a free-ranging commentary on
perceptions of feminine identity, stardom and sexuality in the 1950s, while
retaining the hokey high spirits of your standard drag burlesque.
"Harriet Craig" probably always seemed ripe for spoofing. Its a
Freud-steeped story of an icy, controlling woman who sees sex and marriage
as a means of manipulating her guileless husband, whom she loves far less
than her meticulously kept house. And its telling that the lines that draw
some of the biggest laughs in this version, including "Ive come a long way
from working in that laundry," are lifted directly from the Crawford film.
In fact, the production often feels like the giddy dialogue you have with
movies like "Harriet Craig" in your own mind when you come across them late
at night on television. The show pulls the films barely hidden subtext out
into the open and then exaggerates it to the point of explosion. When the
dictatorial Harriet goes over a list of tasks with her long-suffering
live-in cousin, Claire (the drag chanteuse Varla Jean Merman), she ends it
with, "And you kidnapped the Lindbergh baby?"
While none of the elements of this production come close to replicating the
screen versions images, they seem to capture their essence. The designer
Jeffrey Wallachs gray-and-black representation of the Craig house is an
arch, sinister study in repression, with spiked phallic furniture (by Jerry
Van Deelan) and prints of screaming figures from Picassos "Guernica."
The background music, accordingly, is more often reminiscent of Bernard
Herrmanns score for "Psycho" than of period womens pictures. Lypsinkas
Harriet, dressed in Ramona Ponces armorlike full-skirted New Look costumes,
seems perpetually poised for homicidal breakdown, her eyes moving like
windshield wipers, her mouth alternately a sharks smile and a scrunched-up
moue of distress.
The angular Lypsinka is nicely set off by the round and doughy Ms. Merman,
also known as Jeffrey T. Roberson, who has some very funny business
involving her characters rapacious appetite. The actress Colleen ONeill
convincingly becomes the most masculine presence onstage as Harriets
less-fastidious husband, Walter. And Russell Scott Lewis, playing Claires
nerdy suitor, provides the shows obligatory beefcake nudity with good cheer.
Jay Rogers (the actor who serenaded a picture of Newt Gingrich in "When Pigs
Fly") and Stephen Pell are Harriets persecuted maid servants, who get to
join their mistress in two delightful lip-synching production numbers. These
are close-harmony trios that seem to be more or less in the period of the
movie. In a departure from tradition, Lypsinka also performs to songs from
such later musicals as "Dream Girls" to convey Harriets inner anguish.
Toward the shows end, a disenchanted Walter tells Harriet, "You lie when
you cry; you lie when you smile; you lie when you lip-synch." Its true that
Lypsinkas Harriet seems even more mechanically duplicitous than Crawfords,
which is saying something.
And which is also, of course, the point. Lypsinka has always conveyed an
electrified uneasiness as well as panache, a sense of being trapped in a
programmed vision of femininity.
Drag artists at their best make us see how much of what we think of as
womanly is after all only a mask. While having an infectiously good time
animating that mask, Lypsinka reminds us that this persona can also be a
straitjacket, an item of apparel, for the record, that was used as the title
for a later Crawford film.
Bound to Make You Wonder
Dr. Julia Wonder, "Make My Dreams Your Reality"
New York Post
by Chip Deffaa
I cant imagine Dr. Julia Wonder would like knowing that her publicist
describes her act as "a take-off on every psychic/televangelist/fashion
victim that ever lived."
But then again, since shes a psychic, she no doubt already knows.
"People laugh at me, they think Im kidding, but Im the real thing," Wonder
told me of her psychic abilities the other night, adding receiving a
sudden flash of psychic insight that for the next week she felt I must
avoid subways. (Since I was just about to leave for a vacation on the island
of Jamaica, her advice seemed reasonable enough.) She told a woman at a
nearby table she foresaw "a big enchilada for you this weekend
give me a
minute more, maybe I can tell you the restaurant."
On Tuesday at Marions, the popular Lower East Side restaurant whose walls
are adorned with plates autographed by Madonna, Joel Grey, Antonio Banderas
and Cher, astroparapsychologist Wonder offers predictions and introduces
guest entertainers, who vary from week to week.
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