Life’s a drag for a twentysomething Elvis impersonator named Casey. First, he’s threatened with eviction for not being able to pay his rent. Then he loses his job performing at a seedy Panama City, Fla., beach club. When his wife learns she’s pregnant, the news causes as much concern as it does joy.
But Casey’s fortunes quickly change when a vehicular mishap (drunken roller-skating) debilitates one of the drag queens who’ve replaced him at the club. Casey is urged to shimmy into a black frock and fake-croon the French ballad “Padam, Padam.”
A star is not yet born. “The Legend of Georgia McBride,” which TheaterWorks is extravagantly staging through April 22, has barely begun at that point.
This socially relevant comedy by Matthew Lopez (the oft-darker dramatist of “The Whipping Man” and “Reverberation” fame) is a voyage of self-discovery. It’s also a frisky, fun-loving backstage saga of bruised feelings, friendship and perseverance.
TheaterWorks — a theater where a disco ball has become a standard piece of lighting equipment — has found another show that is an ideal fit for its intimate stage, its hip sensibilities and its loyal up-for-anything audiences.
“The Legend of Georgia McBride,” is better for being so up-close and personal. At the March 22 performance, an audience member was seen attempting to slip a dollar bill to a performer as if this were a strip club. (It’s not. Drag is about putting it on, dear, not taking it off.) I myself got caught in a blinding spotlight when one of the show’s drag queens peeked around a pole near where I was sitting.
Lopez has fun revealing some drag tricks of the trade. Much of the show takes place in the club’s dressing room. We see the entire preparation ritual — from padded underthings to waist cinchers to wigs — several times. We also are treated to a slew of professionally staged drag performances throughout the show, performed in front of a shiny red curtain. The actors lip sync to everyone from Liza to Madonna to Edith Piaf.
“The Legend of Georgia McBride” borrows classic plot points from such familiar backstage dramas as “42nd Street” and “All About Eve.” It makes them seem fresh because those tropes haven’t often been applied to this particular situation. The show’s not a parody, or a pastiche. Amazingly, it’s not campy. The humor comes from real life.
Playwright Matthew Lopez specifies in his script that Casey be white, Jo be black and that the other characters can be of “any ethnicity.” He’s careful to set up Casey as privileged in some ways, reticent or naive in others, yet generally genial and open-minded. While the showbiz mantra “The show must go on!” is evoked, that’s not the only reason Casey dons a dress. The show is about the awakening of a performer, a husband, a modern male and a human being.
In the title role, as well as that of Georgia’s anxious alter ego Casey, Austin Thomas is able to demonstrate, with grace and subtlety, how somebody gradually gets better at something. The scene when his drag persona finally gels, to a country and western soundtrack, is exhilarating.
Every story like this needs a mentor type, the sage old trooper who takes the novice under his wing. Here it’s the divine Jamison Stern, who played a different type of settled drag queen a few seasons ago at Goodspeed Musicals in “La Cage Aux Folles.” This play reunites Stern and “La Cage” director Rob Ruggiero, not to mention wig designer Mark Adam Rampmeyer and choreographer Ralph Perkins. Stern makes everyone look good. He comes off not just accomplished and courageous but comfortable. His elegant romp through “I Enjoy Being a Girl,” enhanced with sound samples from Bette Davis and other movie icons, may do nothing to advance the plot but is the kind of showstopper you wouldn’t want this play to be without.
As Casey’s wife Jo, Samaria Nixon-Fleming can act like “the responsible one” in the relationship yet be believably crushed by some of Casey’s revelations. J. Tucker Smith, as club owner Eddie, is great at being that guy who’s blustery backstage yet uncomfortable when he has to step behind a microphone.
Nik Alexander, last seen in Hartford warbling Miracles and Commodores tunes in the national tour of “Motown The Musical” a year ago at The Bushnell, takes on two supporting characters: Casey and Jo’s landlord Jason and Tracy’s drag co-star Anorexia “Rexy” Nervosa. Alexander not only makes Jason and Rexy so distinct that you can’t believe it’s the same actor, he also invigorates both roles with such great comic timing and outrageous attitude that he earns some of the biggest laughs of the show. He also executes a brilliant and dangerous roller-skating pratfall.
“The Legend of Georgia McBride” is studded with a lot of the accustomed drag jests — catty comebacks, proclamations of fabulousness — but the best jokes are the ones that come out of nowhere: a Janet Reno reference, or this Easter-friendly loving-couple dialogue:
“We are gonna be the best parents since Joseph and Mary.”
“Yeah, but then their kid died.”
There are problems with making the play both an upbeat comedy and a realistic story of desperation, self-exploration and redemption. It may boggle belief that Casey keeps his new career a secret from his wife for so long, or that he would even lie to her at all. But those plot points are beside the point. What makes this play work are its outbursts, not its smooth continuity. There’s a stirring speech about the civil rights legacy of drag. Some of Casey’s most personal confessions come when he’s singing and strumming a guitar. The mix of flashy onstage glamour, frantic backstage dust-ups and domestic strife doesn’t always work, but it’s far better to have done it this way than anything straighter. The pizzazz is important.
Why there aren’t more plays about drag queens is a mystery. Think of how many there are about rock stars or visual artists or writers. “The Legend of Georgia McBride” is also rare in that it’s a drag-based stage show that’s not an all-out musical, a la “La Cage,” “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” or “Victor/Victoria.”
As Harvey Fierstein did with “Torch Song Trilogy,” Matthew Lopez finds the drama that happens behind all the distracting flash of fringed skirts and wild wigs. “Georgia McBride” is a fun night out. It’s also about something. It’s dressed to impress.
THE LEGEND OF GEORGIA MCBRIDE runs through April 22 at TheaterWorks, 233 Pearl St., Hartford. Performances are Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 pm.; Friday and Saturday at 2:30 and 8 p.m.; and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. There is no Saturday matinee on March 17. 860-527-7838 and theaterworkshartford.org.
