Out Chicago actor/playwright David Cerda is slightly appalled that the legendary Hollywood icon Joan Crawford is only known to some young gay men as Faye Dunaway in the unintentionally campy 1981 cult film Mommie Dearest. Or even worse, just via the heavily edited bitchy and violent video clips of Mommie Dearest leading into the ABBA song "Mamma Mia!" shown at gay bars like Sidetrack or The Call.
"Joan Crawford has kind of turned into a Disney villain for gay people," said Cerda, a co-founder of the camp theater company Hell in a Handbag Productions.
Yet that hasn't stopped Cerda from drawing upon Mommie Dearest to create a brand-new holiday show for Hell in a Handbag Productions this season. Written by and starring Cerda, Christmas Dearest fictionally imagines Crawford in the 1940s ( before MGM Studios fired her ) starring in a movie musical extravaganza about the Virgin Mary called Oh, Mary. During the troubled filming, a series of celebrity ghosts visits Crawford in the style of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol as a warning to change her diva-destructive ways.
"What this does is it goes into Joan's real life, because you have to look at her past, present and future," Cerda said, hoping that this play structure will offer more illumination ( along with humor ) to Joan Crawford's life. "It also goes into the Mommie Dearest aspects of it and the version of truth of [her adopted daughter] Christina Crawford. All these worlds collide."
Cerda once again portrays Crawford, a drag persona he has specialized in numerous times in the past ranging from the enthusiastic Pepsi spokesperson in the musical Judy's Scary Little Christmas to the lead singer of the punk band The Joans. Cerda is also responsible for the script and score of Christmas Dearest, too. Cerda says the production notably features some elaborate puppetry, and he adds that the entire enterprise is stretching the limits of what can be done on the postage stamp-sized stage of Mary's Attic.
Christmas Dearest is a respite from Hell in a Handbag's previous adults-only signature holiday spoof show, Rudolph the Red-Hosed Reindeer ( which is just as well, as some audience members might have been confused since Emerald City Theatre is presenting the authorized stage musical version of the Rankin/Bass TV holiday classic at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place ). In addition to a change of pace for Hell in a Handbag, Christmas Dearest offers Cerda another change to portray one of his favorite Hollywood divas.
"The reason [Joan Crawford] is popular with gay audiences is because she represents somebody who has been kicked around and has had to fight for every inch she got and to stay on top," said Cerda, who notes that other famous drag performers like Lypsinka ( a.k.a. John Epperson ) and Charles Pierce have also respected, revered and ribbed various aspects of Crawford's life and career. "And she became this larger-than-life figure—this super ego—that we all wish we could be like the grande dame who is perfect in every way, but with a dark side."
Christmas Dearest continues through Sunday, Dec. 29, at Mary's Attic, 5400 N. Clark St., Chicago. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays ( no show Dec. 8 ) with 3:30 p.m. matinees on Saturdays ( also Dec. 22 ). General admission tickets are $15-$25 and VIP tickets are $35-$100.
There is also an annual company benefit called The Joan Crawford Christmas Extravaganza! from 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8, at the DANKHAUS Cultural Center, 4740 N. Western Ave. Tickets are $99.99-$149.99. For reservations for both the show and fundraiser, call 800-838-3006 or visit www.brownpapertickets.com . For more information on the company, visit www.handbagproductions.org .
Nudity required?
Out Indianapolis actor Michael Swinford has spent a lot of time naked onstage. As one of the few actors in the Indiana capital willing to drop trousers for a number of "gay plays" in the 1990s ( like Terrence McNally's The Lisbon Traviata ) which often had prerequisite full-frontal male nude scenes, Swinford soon found himself typecast.
"I was young and blonde and weighed all of 130 pounds and so those were the kinds of parts I got," said Swinford, who is bringing his one-man show Rough Sex and Other Bad Words for five performances at Gorilla Tango Theatre in Chicago. "I was known as Indianapolis' premiere naked gay actor."
However, as Swinford aged ( he just turned 50 ), those parts inevitably dried up. So after performing other authors' gay-themed one-man shows like David Drake's The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me and Dan Butler's The Only Things Worse You Could've Told Me, Swinford decided it was time to write his own show from someone whose resume "looks like the gay man's guide to theater."
"I got tired of that and I'm grateful for that, but I can do other things," said Swinford, eager to present a gay theater piece that isn't about another young man's coming out process or first love, but from an actor who has lived through playing the stereotypical gay roles in relation to his own life experiences.
Swinford said Rough Sex and Other Bad Words was a hit when it debuted this past summer at the Indianapolis Theatre Fringe Festival, and he's now taking it on a small tour of Midwestern cities. And yes, as in his past roles, Swinford does present some full-frontal nudity in the show.
"It's not just going to be another gay sob story," Swinford said. "The opening monologue takes the pressure off of it, because I'm having fun with it and the audience has fun with it, so it's not just about looking at my dick."
Be Out Loud Theatre's Rough Sex and Other Bad Words plays now through Thursday, Dec. 12, at Gorilla Tango Theatre, 1919 N. Milwaukee Ave. Performance times are 7:30 p.m. Dec. 4-6 and Dec. 11-12. Tickets are $15; call 773-598-4549 or visit www.gorillatango.com/bucktown.
