Flaminia Reviews: Drag the Musical
Yoohoo! It’s your favorite reviewstress. Me, Flaminia.
This weekend a special friend of mine organized a trip for us to New York City as a holiday present. He hadn’t said what show we were going to, just that he had a feeling I’d love it. As always, he was right!
In case you couldn’t tell by the title, or if you forgot because social media has fried your attention span, that show was:
Broadly speaking, there’s three types of roles drag performers play:
Over the top characters written with drag queens in mind, that aren’t queens in the plot of the show. John Waters films starring Divine, the leads in Girls will be Girls, or even Ursula from the Little Mermaid fit this category.
Non drag productions that just so happen to cast a queen; Broadway star Jinkx Monsoon is a great example of this.
Diegetic drag characters. These are canonically performers, and the plot is about drag in some way: Kinky Boots, The Birdcage, or Drag the Musical.
I’ve grown skeptical of post Rupaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) projects in this last category. There’s a tendency to fall back on cliched tropes, tired catchphrases, and saccharine platitudes that ultimately don’t say much. I don’t want to watch 90+ minutes of yass slay boots mama werk all drag is valid! Despite being padded, many of these characters fall flat. Luckily, my cynicism was not warranted this time.
Drag: the Musical is a fun and poignant reflection on the significance and challenges of this creative movement. I knew if anyone could write this well it would be intergalactic drag superstar, Alaska Thunderfuck. She has a deep reverence for drag. Not just RPDR drag, but the entire spectrum of the art new and old.
I won’t go over the entire show. There’s 20 songs total, and I know when you read too much your eyes start to glaze over. Plus, it’s definitely worth seeing for yourself if you can! I’m just focusing on what stood out to me, Flaminia.
Spoilers Below
Before the show started, I was dazzled by the set. It looked even better since we had front row seats. There was no photographs or videographs allowed in the theater. No exception even for me, Flaminia. Maybe because I have no journalistic credentials besides a blog a dozen people read? I’ll do my best to describe the stage from memory (or you could just check out the show’s website). The walls were festive and fruity, like the pomegranate martini I had at Balthazar’s with lunch a few hours prior. In the center was a giant pop art rendition of Alaska’s head. The whole stage had an energetic punk rock feel, with ransom note fonts on show posters and murals of drag legends.
It was time for the show to begin, and what better way to start a show than with a voiceover from EGOT winner Liza Minelli? Liza could read a phone book, and I’d nominate her for another Oscar (even though the stupid academy has yet to return any of my correspondence). She introduced the premise of the show in cleverly written rhymes with a chic accompanying animation. I couldn’t record to quote this, and didn’t wanna have a notebook in a theater like a freak. The gist is that there were two drag queens that dated, had plans to open a club together, had a bitter break up (like when I dated that queen [REDACTED]), and opened cabarets across the street from each other.
The show is centered around these rival drag clubs. The Fish Tank queens are eclectic, colorful, and bold. The Cat House queens have an old school pageant glamour. The two rival houses are a clever homage to Shakespeare (Alaska breaks the fourth wall to tell us this). I thought it also served as an intuitive introduction to drag houses as a concept. This is a topic I get asked about often by people unfamiliar with drag, and something I plan on writing more about in the future.
Alaska and Nick Adams played the lead house matriarchs, Kitty Galloway and Alexis Gillmore. The rest of the cast was a mix of incredible New York talent and some legendary drag queens: Jujubee, Jan Sport, Lagoona Bloo, and Luxx Noir London. I was particularly excited to hear Jan and Lagoona sing. I had seen videos of them singing as two thirds of the girl group Stephanie’s Child years ago. The whole cast was phenomenal, but those two showed off intense vocal technique that requires years of diligent training. It’s unbelievable to hear on recordings, let alone live.
Drag is expensive! This is the name of a humorous act 1 song and a major theme of the show. Anyone who’s performed even once knows how much money can go into this. Makeup, wigs, and the expectation to wear new dazzling costumes each night. Often times when drag queens are shown in media, they just seem to have all this by magic. I know a lot of performers that routinely spend excessive amounts of time and money just for a single number. I appreciated seeing finances not get glossed over. Both bars are struggling with financial pressures too. The Fish Tank can’t afford rent, and The Cat House building is being bought by gentrifying investors.
The inclusion of an AFAB queen in this story was refreshing. AFAB stands for “Assigned Female at Birth”. This includes cis women, trans men, and some non-binary people. Dixie Coxworth, played by the lively Liisi LaFontaine, is a woman who performs at the Fish Tank. The reason the label AFAB exists is because mainstream drag is unfortunately and ironically a cis male dominated field. Dixie represents an overlooked group in local drag scenes, and helps audiences understand what drag is fundamentally about. Many drag artists cross dress sure, but crossdressing isn’t what makes drag drag! It’s about living an illusion. Dixie’s solo “One of the Boys” is a punchy pop anthem for female female-impersonators. I wish I could listen again, but I can’t find it online in the original 2022 studio album. It must have been a later addition, hopefully it gets uploaded eventually.
The most surprising member of the ensemble was the character of Brendan, Alexis’s young nephew that expresses an interest in fashion and makeup. The night I saw the show this was Remi Tuckman, but according to the credits it looks like they alternate between him and Yair Keydar (probably something about child labor laws, idk I’m not a lawyer). When Brendan is introduced, Luxx’s character Popcorn gasps “a child!” with expert comedic timing. I understand that feeling. Interacting with kids while in drag is scary. Not because we’re doing anything wrong, but because of the insane moral panic surrounding queens right now (another subject I want to write more about eventually). Having a kid in this show about drag in 2024 is groundbreaking and brave.
Brendan’s father Tom, the token straight man of the show, doesn’t want his son to act effeminately with the queens. Not out of malice or bigotry, but out of concern that the boy will be bullied for being different. I didn’t expect to get emotional watching this show, but the solo ballad I’m just Brendan felt so personal. “Am I strange? Did I mess up? ‘Cause I like playing dress-up?” is a sentiment I remember too well. Ultimately, Tom realizes that Brendan is better off being himself than being afraid. I can’t express what it meant to see this boy get to be the kid I was too scared to be in public.
Me, just Ben. About 10 or so here. Before I learned about color theory or Restylane.
There’s a lot of fun parts of the show I didn’t talk about, but I think I’ve said everything I wanted to. I’m grateful not just to have seen Drag the Musical, but to live in a world where it can exist.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far. If you want to read more of my ramblings in the future you can find me, Flaminia on social media linked below. Or join the mailing list that I haven’t totally figured out how to use yet <3
