by George Patterson
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

Hedwig and The Angry Inch is Heady Entertainment

New Orleans has a new musical comedy entertainment that should be packing them in for the foreseeable future at the Shim Sham Club on Toulouse St. in the French Quarter.

Written by its original star, John Cameron Mitchell (whose movie debut is now in release), Hedwig and the Angry Inch is ostensibly a rock and roll concert by a Transgender named Hedwig and her band called the Angry Inch that is playing at the Shim Sham Club. The concert is comprised of 11songs written by Stephen Trask that borrow from the Beatles, David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, Iggy Pop and The Who, coupled with singer Hedwig's "patter" between them in which she tells of her bizarre life as a young Gay growing up in East Berlin where, so desperate is she to get to the West that, when an American G.I. falls for her, she opts for a sex change to be allowed to immigrate. But it's a botched operation that leaves her with only an inch of flesh in the front -her "angry" inch. Now in America, she has been searching for her other "self," the real "her," and for someone to love her front as much as they love her back.

Flynn DeMarco thoroughly owns the role of Hedwig. At the last dress rehearsal performance bought out by the Krewe of Petronius, Mr. DeMarco was in complete control of his role - and looked sensational in his Farrah Fawcett "winged" do and funky patched denim, rhinstoned outfit with its tacky pink fringe (designed by Amanda Madden). His ability to handle a front row of seasoned drag queen hecklers with language that would make a sailor blush, his on-the-nose comic putdowns about specific New Orleans institutions, his ability to sustain a German accent while morphing into other characters, coupled with his savvy delivery of the show's eclectic music, keep one riveted for the show's 90 non-stop minutes.

Of course, Mr. DeMarco is receiving some awesome support for his endeavors. Backing him all the way is singer Dorian Rush (Kiki le Bonbon) as drag king Yitzak and a band comprised of Benji, the show's music director and bassist whose stage name is Skszp; lead guitarist Rhoades Diablo called Krzysztof; guitarist Eric Laws as Jacek; and Cori Walter as Schlatko - the band is supposedly all from Eastern Europe, hence the names.

The co-direction by Karl Walker and Richard Read is inobtrusive but evident in the subtle but complex lighting design by Martin L. Sachs and Diane Baas which must only light the performers while a steady stream of colorful, witty stick drawings that help illuminate the story, by artist James Youmans, are constantly being flashed upon a sheet screen.

During the course of Hedwig's set, she slowly peels away layers of her costume, until the quite touching conclusion at which she finally finds her other half - the male side of herself - her Tommy Gnosis. Even if you remember the first act of Torch Song Trilogy, or "I Am What I Am" from La Cage Aux Folles, you will not be prepared for the impact of Hedwig's discovery of his own special Tommy Gnosis. This is first rate heady entertainment.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch will have you dancing in the aisles. Don't miss it.

Dorothy Rothschild Parker Campbell Campbell

In Michael Cahill's new play, Dorothy and Alan, about the marriage between writers Dorothy Parker and North Carolinian Alan Campbell, we learn that the New Jersey born half Jewish/half Scottish wit and raconteur was first called Dorothy Rothschild before a brief marriage to Edwin Parker, a stock broker. Her relationship with Campbell, a soso actor and Hollywood screenwriter (also half Jewish and Scottish), was evidently so turbulent that they were divorced and then remarried.

Unfortunately, the play, on stage at Le Chat Noir through July 21, does not dramatize this turbulence but rather, in its presentational style as co-directed and acted by writer Cahill as Alan Campbell and famous women channeler, local actress/director extraordinaire Janet Shea, it merely declares this and many, many other interesting facts about this couple and their lives in mid-twentieth century New York and Hollywood utilizing the writers' actual words. In Ms. Parker's case, Cahill has a wealth of published material from which to choose - hilarious rejoinders, terse poetry, short stories, even speeches; Campbell, on the other hand, was not the published professional his pen and acid wife was, who wrote for Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, Esquire and other erudite journals of the period. Together the two of them wrote the screenplays to several mediocre films, the most successful being A Star is Born.

Written in many short scenes bracketed with jaunty piano music of the period (lots of Gershwin) utilizing only a couple of chairs and a table and very few props, the play takes us from New York to Hollywood to Denver to Bucks County where the couple maintained a home. Upon the commencement of WWII, Campbell only enlisted in the Army, as a private, after being severely criticized by Parker, who had been a member of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League and had even gotten involved in the Spanish Civil War. She was a militant liberal and as such made the de rigeur appearance at the HUAC in the Red Scare 50's. (In fact, she bequeathed her estate to the NAACP.)

We learn in one scene that they most assuredly liked alcohol with Dorothy getting quite soused but the sousing's dramatic intent takes us no further than a certain vaudevillian humor. We learn that both suffered from neuroses so severe that they culminated in Ms. Parker attempting suicide three different times - Mr. Campbell's, on the other hand, was successful. But there are no scenes that illustrate such a depth of depression. Even though the play in its present draft seems to be ostensibly about Parker, it curiously ends upon Campbell's death.

Mr. Cahill plays the role of Campbell with consummate self-effacement, always deferring to Ms. Shea's more flamboyant character. He needs to concentrate more on the role of Alan which remains a cipher. Perhaps if he were to delve into the Bisexual aspect of this character he might find the central conflict this play is now lacking. Lord knows, there's enough conflict within the character and the life of Dorothy Parker for any number of plays. We only recently had a film called Dorothy Parker and the Vicious Circle that delved into her years as a member of the Algonquin Round Table (a part of her life not touched on here.)

Ms. Shea, who has made a mini career of appearing in monodramas of famous women, from Diana Vreeland to Emily Dickenson to Lillian Hellman, again shines here, acing zinger after zinger. The play is studded with many, many Parker gems like "I hate wives - too many people have them." Or this: "I like to have a martini,/Two at the very most./ After three I'm under the table,/ After four I'm under the host!"

Mr. Cahill has found a most theatrical subject. Dorothy and Alan is already a worthy cabaret entertainment. Judging from the large, sophisticated, alert audience, with a little bit more work and imaging, it could become a viable, and very commercial, property.

The Winter's Tale: Theatre Magic

Shakespeare, at the end of his career, was in a mellow mood with his own imaginings for a most unique fairy tale called The Winter's Tale, which, in Aimee Michel's spot-on production for the Shakespeare Festival at Tulane, is presently gracing the Lupin Theatre's boards. As it is rarely produced, this production is a must-see for any and all Shakespeare lovers. Director Michel and her collaborators have produced a terse, stripped down, sleek play in which all the theatre arts, from Amela Baksic's Watteau inspired watered silk costumes, Hugh Lester's simple thrust stage with its ethereal lighting, Stephen Thomas' recorder/guitar/percussion musical score and an ensemble of dedicated actors come together seamlessly and take wing in this romance that moves through a span of sixteen years from outrageous tragedy to elating comedy.

My only quibble with the production is in the (continuing) double casting of actor Danny Bowen as both Leontes, the jealous king of Sicilia whose bizarre jealousy in the first act causes him to lose his wife, his son and his daughter, and as the Old Shepard who finds, saves and rears the daughter and returns with her to Sicilia where the actor must make a very quick change back to Leontes so that he can experience the revival of his dead wife and see his grown daughter marry the son of the friend he had been so jealous of he had ordered his best man to kill.

As Leontes, Mr. Bowen is simply too sympathetic an actor to be believable. He is not a heavy. On the other hand, coupled with Gary Rucker as his rustic sidekick called Clown, the role of the Old Shepard is a wonderful fit.

Andrea Frankle is a touching, and beautiful, pregnant Hermoine, Leontes' wife whose good will and pleasant disposition convinces the King of Bohemia, and an old friend of Leontes, Gavin Mahlie's likeable Polixenes, to lengthen his already 9 month visit. This simple act is what provokes Leontes' jealousy. The two friends part as enemies. Leontes sends his aide, Camillo, off to poison Polixenes since the jealousy has caused him to believe that his wife is carrying not his but Polixenes' baby. He sends Cleomenes (Donald Lewis) to the oracle of Apollo but doesn't believe the oracle's prognosis. Hermoine is thrown into prison. When her lady-in-waiting, Paulina (red haired Shelley Poncy), takes her newly born baby girl, named Perdita, to Leontes, thinking he will melt and forget his rage, the opposite occurs and he orders Paulina's husband, Antigonus (Robert Montgomery) to kill the baby, but Antigonus takes the baby to Bohemia and leaves her there in a basket where she's discovered by that Old Shepherd. Hermoine dies and her death provokes the death of their young son, Mamillius (Brendan Bowen).

Sixteen years later Perdita (Jessica Podewell) has fallen in love with Florizel (Billy Slaughter), Polixenes' son; when Polixenes finds out about this, thinking her to be a commoner, he orders his son to leave her. Instead, they elope to Sicilia where Leontes learns, through the ministrations and magic of Paulina, that Perdida is his daughter and blesses her union with the son of his (former) enemy, and watches spellbound, as we all do, as the statue of his dead wife comes back to life. They obviously live happily ever after.

Tony Molina, who awed as Hamlet last year, anchors this production with his innate naturalness as Autolycus, described in the program as a "rogue." He is utilized as a kind of strolling African storyteller/narrator whose interactions with the rustic Clown (Mr. Rucker) in the last part of the play, including performing a lovely calypso esque song, is the comic highpoint of a beautiful production and a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

A Gorgeous Will Rogers Follies

Summer Lyric Theatre at Tulane University scored a major theatrical coup with their recent electric production of the 1991 Tony award-winning Tommy Tune-conceived The Will Rogers Follies, subtitled A Life in Revue, that boasted a seemingly never-ending parade of gorgeous, incredibly detailed rented costumes that, according to B. Michael Howard, Summer Lyric's Artistic Director, were worth a million dollars. Elizabeth Parent, as "director" of these costumes, and her hard-working assistants, made them fit every one of the many cast members to the proverbial "T," from heavy leather chaps that exposed buns of steel to frothy showgirl confections in every conceivable color and feather.

The book, written by Peter Stone (1776), tells the story of the life of Will Rogers, a part Indian Oklahoman and a very popular raconteur and political commentator of early 20th century America, in the form of a Ziegfeld Follies revue.

Jimmy Murphy, who scored a major coup as P.T. Barnum in Le Petit's production of Barmun last year (another musical comedy with music by Cy Coleman), was an 8" X 10" glossy subbing for the the tall, lanky rope twirler, but he affected the proper Midwestern drawl and wrapped his considerable baritone voice around the rather mundane score with its Betty Comden and Adolph Green lyrics that more often than not are rhymed exposition, and his gum chewing, aw shucks air, and charming smile, sugar coated the glittering, feathered nonsense and made the whole go down most satisfyingly (even if the Depression-inspired radio address at the end of the over two hour production seems a tad maudlin).

Summer Lyric's most cherished asset, Ms. Elizabeth Argus, as Ziegfeld's Favorite, traded in her Eliza Doolittle Britishisms for a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth Southern drawl and stopped the show on every one of her considerable entrances, and exits, displaying a perfect set of gams and curves and pandering shamelessly to the tired businessmen in the audience with breathtaking attitude.

Kristopher Kael (aka Kris Shaw), who played Will Rogers in Rivertown Rep's local premiere production several years ago, played the father, Clem, in this production and was also a major asset in the production's success. Even after his death, he is utilized by the skinflint Ziegfeld, hiding up in the light booth in the voice of Stocker Fontelieu - who interrupts the revue periodically to keep it on track - so as not to have to hire any more actors!

Beautful brunette belter Lisa Anzelmo as Will's long-suffering wife, Betty Blake, sang her several ballads with great self confidence, but the songs are ho-hum, especially the horribly unspecific "My Unknown Someone."

Besides the stunning costumes and the above named performers, the other (unseen) stars of the production were Alton Geno's swift-paced direction (he benefited from having directed the Rivertown Rep production as well, which he also choreographed), Diane Lala's outstanding choreography and her bevy of beautiful girls, and five great guys, who executed it perfectly, David Raphel's impressive set of wing to wing sequined and spangled stairs, with its innumerable flying set pieces that moved the show from Oklahoma to New York to the moon to Hollywood and served as a perfect backdrop for those incredible costumes - the costume parade number in the second act with its Erte-inspired costumes that just kept coming, and Pamela Legendre's huge orchestra and her very effective backstage singing ensemble (that boasted the voices of Terri Gervais and John Giraud and other local singing professionals).