John Epperson's legendary Lypsinka is now on the New York stage until Jan. 3, 2015.
The character is his lip-synching drag alter ego. He brings to the stage Lypsinka! The Trilogy consisting of three different productions—two revivals: Lypsinka! The Boxed Set, a revue featuring excerpts from films and musical recordings, and The Passion of the Crawford, a recreation of a 1973 Joan Crawford interview, as well John Epperson: Show Trash, an autobiographical setting with Epperson playing piano, singing, and dishing about his early years in Mississippi.
Windy City Times caught up with Lypsinka in NYC in his fave restaurant.
Windy City Times: What brings you back after almost a decade away from the stage?
Lypsinka: I haven't been totally away. I've performed the Passion of the Crawford three times in San Francisco in the past decade. I joke that anyone could do a show about Joan Crawford in San Francisco and it'll be a hit! But I haven't done a run of a show in New York for nine years.
WCT: Everything coming together?
Lypsinka: I'd been waiting for all the pieces to fall into place—the right theater, right publicist, money, and the right time. I would have done it earlier if all of that had fallen into place. The person who's really making it happen is an angel that I found in Paris. He's helping to fund the revival so I have him to thank.
WCT: Have you performed in the Chicago market?
Lypsinka: Hardly at all—I would like to and I've tried.
WCT: In the nine years since you've been on a New York stage, assimilation primarily through marriage and open service in the Armed Forces is reshaping parts of the LGBT community.
Will no longer being "different" change our creativity?
Lypsinka: Would Tennessee Williams have written Streetcar Named Desire or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or The Glass Menagerie today? Would Tchaikovsky have written all that gorgeous music if he felt like he belonged? That's why assimilation worries me. Is it going to be the end of culture, of art and creating?
WCT: I've asked Edmund White what if people like E. M. Forster, Williams and others had been out, would they have created differently? He has said, paraphrasing, they may have produced more, not necessarily differently.
Lypsinka: Maybe. Perhaps Williams had other demons chasing him, not just his sexuality. We won't really know until this assimilation is complete and a whole generation has gone through it.
Kids often rebel against their parents. Think about all the gay people who have kids. I'm curious to see how their kids will manifest their rebellion.
WCT: Say more...
Lypsinka: Since they're being raised in very liberal households open about sexual attitudes, their rebellion may not be about sexuality. And just because their parents are gay doesn't mean they are or will be.
WCT: Speaking of rebellion, we are at war with words again, from RuPaul to Facebook. I used the term "camp" and you said, "Oh, I hope not."
Lypsinka: I think "camp" is a very limiting perception now. Maybe it was liberating in '64 when Susan Sontag wrote her essay ( Notes on "Camp" ). Now it's an overused word people use in a dismissive way just as the word "drag queen" can also be dismissive. "Drag queen" is a term that dumbs things down to say they're "campy." On the other hand, the whole world is dumbed down, so maybe I should say my revival is "campy" and I'd sell more tickets!
WCT: If we think something is "camp," then we needn't look any deeper than what's being presented visually?
Lypsinka: It's just surface, shallow. I've always aimed for something bigger than that. Whether that's a mistake of mine or not, I don't know. A show needs to be about something. Even something like Broadway's Cinderella. I imagine Douglas Carter asking himself What is this about? instead of just telling the story again. What's deeper than the Cinderella myth on the surface is very powerful.
WCT: Like what is beneath drag performance can be deeper, beyond the visual fluff you or Ru Paul or any performer presents?
Lypsinka: Yes. This will sound hoity-toity, and I don't mean for it to, but people have tried to peg me as a "performance artist" or a "drag queen" or "drag performer" or whatever, but I've finally come to accept that what I am is a surrealist. Now that could be distancing to lots of people, and that's an overused word too. There was even a reality show called The Surreal Life. In fact, I wanted to call Show Trash something else, The Sad and Lonely Half World of the Sissy Surrealist and we decided the shorter name was more succinct. Still, I'm going to tell the audience that we thought of that name and we should get a laugh.
WCT: You'll give people occasion to think about real versus surreal afterward?
Lypsinka: Hopefully they will think, oh, there's something more than we thought. Just like I didn't want to go see Michael Urie do a show ( Buyer & Cellar ) about Barbra Streisand. That sounds awful. I imagine people thinking that, like I did. Then after seeing him, as I did, they realize, oh, my God, there was so much more that was unexpected, they had pre-conceived notions just as I had.
WCT: Facebook has decided that female impersonators, drag queens, people who do not use their real names, cannot have a Facebook membership under performance names. Have you had any trouble?
Lypsinka: You'd have to ask Facebook why they haven't given me a hard time, but I wondered if maybe it's because my own longevity outside of Facebook using the name Lypsinka, created 32 years ago. Ima Hogg could have been created last year. It could also have something to do with the fact that my Facebook page is very popular and they probably know that. I also have a Lypsinka fan page there.
I get many requests from people who want to be my friend, many of them drag queens with wacky names and there have been so many lately. I thought maybe the popularity of RuPaul's Drag Race has made so many gay guys think, "Oh, I want to create a drag character for myself too" and they create online identities. Facebook probably thinks it's too much, too many.
WCT: You're performing a trilogy, one of three shows on different nights in the same run. Too many? How do you prepare?
Lypsinka: I wish I could meditate but my brain is always spinning so I'm lucky to sleep. I'm doing good if I can get some sleep. I exercise constantly, did my cardio and other exercises this morning with more to do before the day is out. I exercise my singing daily. I'm going to a singing lesson from here.
