Yay For Duckie!

Duckie is a weekly performance art/gay dance party. Ten years at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London have helped transform that venue from a regular pub to a destination for artsy, non-house music-loving, gay friendly people. It was one of my favorite nights out in London, and imagine my elation when I learned the creators of the night were creating a show and bringing it to NYC. Oh joy.

The marketing for the show, presented by P.S. 122 and performed at the CSV Cultural Center, slants a bit toward the burlesque, which is misleading. It is pure performance art. Each table, including your group and several strangers, are handed a menu, and 40 Duckie Dollars. The menu is a listing of the performances available, and each are brought to your table for your viewing pleasure. Each performance costs X amount of Duckie Dollars, and you decide as a table which pieces to order from the menu. In addition, there is a specials menu. I believe each week there is a visiting NYC-based performance artist that adds more options to the show. We had the pleasure of seeing Miss Dynasty Handbag, who performed a lovely “Brain-Eating Cheerleader” for us.

Other highlights were the famous “Nacho Snatcho”, during which a performer balances a bowl of salsa between her legs, whilst standing up on her shoulders, and feeding everyone nachos with her toes, that we then dip into the salsa. “Make a Queen Smile” was an extremely energetic and disturbing joke. We also ordered “James Bond and the Perverted Pussy” which was a story with prop humor. There was the “Crap Tap, where a performer tap danced on the table with poo on his shoes and fed to someone (it was chocolate of course.) The same girl who did the Nacho Snatcho is also equally talented in making balloon penises and making a Barbie Doll do the Can Can….while she also does the Can Can. On her back. With doll in crotch. Very classy. Then there was a magic trick with a woman who burned her chicken. The list of events was long enough to keep anybody entertained.

What was most interesting is the construct of the evening. Each table had it’s own spotlight, that was lowered toward the center of the table when no performers were servicing that table. Then, when it’s your table’s turn to get a show, the light is promptly raised, and you have a performer and spotlight. And the rest of the room can kinda check out what’s going on at all the other tables, but it’s never as interesting as when it’s happening right in front of you.

I loved how personal everything felt. As if each table was getting the utmost in posh service and attention from the staff and performers. It really created a mood, an atmosphere, and an experience. And the evening began and ended with a rather involved choreographed and costumed dance number, complete with original event theme music. But please don’t confuse it with Burlesque; this is hilarious, raunchy British performance art, and a must see, fun night out.

I love these guys. Banana Bag and Bodice are well known for making interesting downtown theatre. Or are they well known for making downtown theatre interesting? You tell me.

This latest of their original creations, The Fall and Rise of the Rising Fallen, follows the existence of a rock band. You don’t get a ton of back story, other than the fact that the band finds itself trapped on an oil rig for six months. During that time they play every night for the crew. It is unclear whether or not they are still currently trapped on the oil rig. Such is the case with most of their writing. You don’t get a lot of linear dialogue or straight talk in most of their shows. It’s more about the poetry, the mood, the emotion…basically everything apart from traditional conversational text (ala Neil Simon, for example.) This was somewhat frustrating if I recall, during their last play The Sewers, which was just so unrelentingly dark I wanted a piece of familiar speech pattern to hold onto, and just never did. This show, however, is much more gleeful. I’m not sure exactly if it is trying to say anything particularly new or different, it was more about just being in the space, in the moment, with a bunch of musicians making music. And most of the music is really, really good. Better than most music made by actual musicians. Furthermore proving my point that actors can do anything!!!

Peter Blomquist plays Francoise, the lead singer, and is charismatic and interesting like any good front man. He channels a bit of Jim Morrison and the dude from Joy Division in his twitchy, erratic, sensual singing style. Jessica Jelliffe on drums, over the course of this project alone, has surpassed Meg White’s lifetime capacity for proficiency on the instrument. You’d never know she was a relative beginner. I also enjoyed Jason Craig (as Jacko, on Bass) and seeing his softer side. It was a good character creation from a piece that was not character driven.

Interesting piece of theatre, even better live band to go see. Music is theatre. Theatre is music. Maybe they’ll quit acting and start touring. I’m not sure if I’d be really disappointed or really psyched. Probably a bit of both.

What an awesome live band! Not really at all what I’d expected based on their recordings. A must-see live group of performers.

Much more staged and scripted than your average concert. I didn’t know until just before attending that it was to be a seated show. And although I really did want to get up and dance almost the whole show, the theatricality of it did lend to it being held in an establishment where I’d seen a number of Off-Broadway plays and musicals (The Barrow Street Theatre).

Each song began either with a story, or with scripted banter between band members. And, like a musical, when a particular musician wasn’t featured, they would simply leave the stage.

Also, like a staged musical, each musician seemed to have his or her own character or persona, within the context of the band. Learning now from the program that several band members are former actors makes a lot of sense.

The music could be described something like this: Modern pop-country-blues-folk-comedy-jazz-swing-rockabilly. Highlights were many. First, I loved hearing their hit “Winning the War on Drugs,” a satire about the state of drug enforcement in the US. I also enjoyed “Medley,” which was a composition of songs that they are so sick of performing live, they’ve smushed them all into one song, and between verses, tell the audience that that’s all we’re getting of those particular gems. Then Wammo’s love song to beer, aptly named “Beer.” Party song. My particular favorite was an unreleased tune called “My Baby in the CIA” which is a comedic tale of a man in love with a woman in love with her covert ops and alien conspiracies. Very funny. “Hick Hop” is a combination between old-school country music and gangsta rap (”because thematically they’re very similar…”). And “My Favorite Record” is a love song to all of the band members’ favorite records, and they would stop the song do delve into a few measures of the music on their favorite records, before returning to the actual song. Neat idea and very well constructed.

Those are just a few highlights. Really the whole show was extremely entertaining. The small audience was a bit disconcerting, perhaps because it was their opening night and on a Monday. But I hope lots of people get to see the show. I wouldn’t want to go twice, because of the completely scripted nature of it, I’m sure you’d get pretty much the exact show again, but I hope lots of people go to see it once.

Best. New. Years. Ever.

Seriously. Had been seriously looking forward to this show at the Manhattan Center’s Grand Ballroom (over Hammerstein, where Velvet Revolver was playing, and there was much confusion at the door). From the moment we stepped inside, I was transported into a new, happy-time world. People that looked like me, dressed like me, liked the same music as me. I forget that in a city full of strangers, there are strangers that are not quite so strange. In fact, it was the most beautiful crowd I’ve ever seen. Girls in rubber ball gowns, Victorian era crumbling lace dresses, white-faced goths, steam punk kids, musical theatre queens….the list of happy gorgeous people goes on and on. I was happy as a little girl could be on New Years Eve.

The show itself was fantastic. I arrived only to see half of Meow Meow’s set (thanks to the long coat check line…at $4 per item, I was none too pleased) but then seeing her perform, my mood was instantly lifted. Think Elvira meets English glamour lounge singer/cabaret act. Hard to sum up Miss Meow Meow in words. Her bizzare voice and gorgeous combination of punk rock and glam aesthetics were honey to the eyes and ears. My favorite part of her set was when she crowd surfed, yelled at everyone that we were lazy bastards, demanded she be carried to the bar, where she was served a whiskey, then crowd surfed back to the stage, whiskey in hand. It was a pretty impressive feat.

Then there was an amazing circus performer guy that did amazing things with a giant metal circle. Pretty rad. Then a bucket was passed for his payment cuz as a late addition to the show, he was contracted for any money, and when the bucket came to me as I put in my contribution, I noticed that it was full of money. What a nice crowd!

Next up was the Luminescent Orchestrii, out of Brooklyn, NY. Again, hard to describe. Violins and accordions if memory serves. Sort of a dance/punk/klezmer band. Pretty awesome musicians. Wasn’t obsessively in love with them, but would definitely check them out again. Really wanted to dance to some of their stuff but the room was just too crowded to dance at all, even when instructed to waltz and tango, it was impossible.

Then came the main event. Amanda and Brian in all their glory, opened the show dressed like Nazi’s and did a cover of Pink Floyd’s In The Flesh. Then the stripped down, revealing their increasingly bare Dolls garb and got down to it.

The set list, which I normally wouldn’t delve into, is interesting because of the large number of covers, and the number of times the other acts came out to do a quadruple band jam. They started with the Pink Floyd song, then into Girl Anachronism, then I think Mrs. O, and a bunch of stuff I hadn’t heard before. One of the new songs off her new album with Ben Folds was played, it was excellent. Called Astronaut, I believe. Also Glass slipper, an oldie but a goodie. A song called The Gardener during which she walked through the crowd. I forget who that one was by. Just before midnight, they busted into The Beastie Boys’ Fight for your Right to Party (calling it an old Jewish protest song). Then we counted down to midnight. Then they went into a half lip-synch, half-live version of Queen’s We are the Champions. Hilarious, dramatic, and powerful. Later in the set they performed Mein Herr from Cabaret. Me and the theatre queens in the house were elated. In addition to all of this, they still managed to squeeze in some actual Dresden Dolls favs, like Miss Me and Coin Operated Boy, and a few off the new album like Mandy goes to Med School and Sex Changes. But the amount of new music (new to me) was staggering. They must have really played a long time. I was pleased.

Something to be said for seeing your favorite band on New Years. The year’s been good so far.

I apologize to my readers (all two of you) for not updating you more often about my theatre viewing. As it stands now, it’s been so long I can hardly remember the last thing I saw, let alone many details. But I’ll do the best I can in writing the following note about my friend Natasha’s show, 4F: The New Class, performed at the Laurie Beechman Theater.

This show was written and conceived by a group of young people calling themselves The Gossip Factory. Composed of actors and writers and all around creative people, this little show was a smart, mean, biting, hilarious little satire of….well, a lot of things. It gets around to attacking a whole bunch of topics. From the highly political and wide-scope, to normal problems teens face today (too many babies, tanorexia, etc). All with a huge emphasis on how the media has distorted our world view of so many things, the show really has huge potential to actually say something interesting, which is unfortunately a rare concept.

All taking place during the time frame of a typical day of high school, the action follows a cast of over-exaggerated, stereotypical teen characters, and the antics of their typical day. The actors would all alternate from scene to scene and would step into the role of a particular teacher for one scene, then back to their student character for the next one. Good construct there, and each actor was capable of playing teens and adults quite adeptly.

The show, however, suffered from a lack of direction. Probably because I was informed after the fact that it was a group effort, and therefore was no official director. There were too many voices trying to be heard, and too much going on in every scene. Much needed to be edited. But with the help of a solitary, outside figurehead, it could be greatly cleaned up and vastly improved. That being said, it was already hilarious to begin with, so they can only improve. Go Go Gossip Factory.