Arts
Art Attack!
Lucie Blue Tremblay:
Folk Concert Benefits Pride
Queerly Pursuing the Wiccan Path
Rocking and Writing Against Depression
Navel Gazing Author Predicts the 'End of Gay'
Performance Art Show Kicks Off Pride Month
L to R: David Tilley, Anne Moore, and Frida Siegel
by Margaret C. Porter
Proud Parent of a Drug-Addicted, Tattooed & Pierced Sexual Deviant was something more than a talent show, and something less than off-off-Broadway, a homegrown (mostly) evening of music, dance, and comedy that was a good kick-off for Pride month.
The cabaret-club atmosphere of the Flynn Space, filled with a sold-out crowd of friends and family, was just the right environment for the performances. The first piece was an oddity of dance and music (choreographed by Sara McMahon) performed by Rachel (“Frida”) Siegel called “Essential Tension.” The accompaniment was a disconcerting setting of music and Hebrew chant at low volume. It was nice to see Siegel’s chunky body displayed onstage, even through the tension of her positions and the extra frills of a multi-layered dress reminiscent of a short wedding cake.
Anne Moore, the MC and occasional performer of numerous R.U.1.2? coffeehouses, followed, warming up the audience with her well-used repertoire of a capella torch songs. “Bewitched, Bothered, & Bewildered” (which she didn’t know was written by Rodgers and Hart, when asked by one young audience member whether she had written it herself, while another audience member guessed Cole Porter) was the opener, sung in the ironic, campy, over-the-top style of lounge-lizards everywhere (but especially on Saturday Night Live).
Then came “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” in a Madonna-parody style pulled off easily by the blonde crooner. Her delivery came with the punch of Gal (Janice Perry, in her earlier, more musical, over-the-top intense mode), followed by the breathiness of Marilyn Monroe. Petula Clark also made an appearance – or at least her 60s anthem “Downtown” did.
But the show-stopper was her performance of “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” playing both Barbra Streisand (facing left) and Neil Diamond (facing right).
Even comedian Jason P. Lorber (perhaps recognizing a hard act to follow) commented on her amazing feat and the inclusive politics of a woman announcing that she would play a woman: “Well, men do it all the time, why shouldn’t women get to?”
Lorber played the naïf, announcing, “There sure are a lot of gay people here... in Burlington. Are there gay people here in this room?” One guy was gently heckling him, and Lorber asked if he was gay: he refused to answer (although he was known to many in the audience as gay). Lorber went down the list of bi, trans, and queer, then came back with, “Are there any closeted gay people here?” The heckler put up his hand: big laugh.
Lorber’s riff on LGBTQIA was on target for the audience, and he generally came up with the unexpected punchline or comment to stir a queer audience into laughter. And he did a bit on the “passive-aggressive politeness” of Vermont drivers at a four-way stop (it happens only outside of Burlington).
His comedy touched on his Jewish background and his own idiosyncrasies, with a bit of (fictional) self-deprecation. He bantered with talkative audience members without being vicious. He was funny, and you had to be there.
After intermission, the main event: “Proud Parent of a Drug-Addicted, Tattooed & Pierced Sexual Deviant,” billed as a musical dance-theater extravaganza. Well, on a budget – there was a call for volunteers to help strike the set, including the lighting, after the show, “Proud Mommy” was taking tickets at the door, “Proud Step-Sister” brought refreshments for the post-performance reception, and “Proud Father” sat in the audience and laughed in that embarrassed, self-conscious way parents do when they’re being displayed as “source material” for their child’s creative enterprises, all identified by large buttons.
The script was, for the most part, a series of snapshots of Rachel Siegel’s experiences growing up from being a sunflower in the kindergarten play (“Here Comes the Sun”) to owning a house and a car and becoming pregnant, truly “Mainstream.” In the middle came the drug addiction (to some unnamed substance), the tattoo (a friend’s less-than-professional attempt), and the piercing (of her ears at a mall).
It was very tongue-in-cheek – even the “sexual deviancy” was maybe she’s a lesbian, maybe she’s bi – very “let’s see how far a right wing radical could take this labeling when I’m just a more-or-less normal child in this society.”
Siegel was ably supported and accompanied by Anne Moore, vocals and electric guitar, and by David Tilley at the piano, both of whom got to insert bits from their own life histories. Tilley provided some of the comic relief: with each chorus of the title, “proud parent of a drug-addicted, tattooed & pierced sexual ·” there would be a very pregnant pause while Tilley gathered his forces for the “deviant” pronouncement given as provocatively as possible, ranging from gravelly bass to tittering falsetto.
Siegel’s poses in the dance sections were expressive with a refreshing unpretentiousness, a romp, not high art. Her balances (while being bombarded with balls of various sizes, from pingpong to beachball) were the respectable result of yoga as well as dance. The accompanying song allowed as how keeping one’s balance could be “tricky” in complicated times (organic national brand vs. local conventional, and other political-is-personal dilemmas).
It was a loving and semi-punk tribute from a performance artist to her parents, without whom she would not have gotten this far. And it was received warmly by an audience of friends and family and “family” with a standing ovation.
Margaret Porter hangs out and writes in rural Chittenden County.