Photo credit: Michael Brosilow
'The Legend of Georgia McBride' is currently running in the Quadracci Powerhouse.
Drag, that culture of gender-bending cross-dressing in a frock and wig for entertainment’s sake (or merely for the sheer lark of it), goes back thousands of years. I’m sure 40 millennia before Narcissus, some Neanderthal cooed at his reflection in a puddle, smeared mud on his face, donned some shells and thought himself a fabulous queen. He probably went back to the cave to put on a show doing disgruntled gatherer shtick and brought down the house.
Ironically, today’s drag as we know it can be traced to straight patriarchy. Until the mid-17th century, women were forbidden to perform on stage, so men played female roles. Then, 19th-century public decency laws criminalized cross-dressing. But actors on the Vaudeville stage and later in films and TV got away with it for laughs. Gay drag expression took place at private parties and clandestine clubs. They often didn’t get away with it, suffering the consequences accordingly. By the 1970s, LGBTQ activism reversed the legal obstacles to the practice, which in turn resulted in the era of the drag queen unchained. Performers usually impersonated iconic stars like Liza Minnelli and Cher. Others went rogue. Speaking of which, my intro to the genre was John Waters’ 1974 classic Female Trouble, which cast the cult icon and mother of modern drag Divine as Dawn Davenport, a trailer trash mom turned art criminal.
Since then, drag queens have had their ups and downs. When I first volunteered to chair ARCW’s Gala Make-A-Promise Auction back in 1995, the drag contingent, traditionally integral to the HIV/AIDS support network, were kindly uninvited lest they offend newly engaged straight corporate sponsors and donors. Now, decades later, regardless of an event’s gravitas, one can barely turn around without bumping into a bevy of besequined queens in mock Bob Mackie dresses. Drag Story Hour is a thing. And, drag as a storyline has become mainstream with plays and movies turning our once-exclusive performances into hetero entertainment.
The charming French farce, La Cage Aux Folles (The Bird Cage), for example, introduced a subculture of a subculture to audiences that might otherwise not have had much (if any) experience with the LGBTQ community in general and drag queens in particular. Theoretically, this should contribute positively to their greater understanding of the queer community.
The risk, however, is inadvertently painting the community as a whole with the broad brush of quirky, clownish characters with little humanity. While the Skylight Music Theatre’s production of La Cage aux Folles a few seasons back was seen by some as an uninhibited celebration of universal family values, others found it to be a cringe-inducing exercise in Stepin Fetchit stereotyping.
Meanwhile at The Rep, The Legend of Georgia McBride, a drag show within a play, is currently running in the Quadracci Powerhouse. The plot revolves around a married, straight Elvis Presley impersonator whose desperate financial circumstances force him to perform in drag. When “The King” becomes a Queen, self-discovery ensues.
How straight audiences perceive and process the message remains the question. Do they leave the theater musing, “Ah, love is love,” or “My, those queens are good for a laugh, aren’t they?”
