Playwright: Leslie Jordan
At: Bailiwick Repertory Theater
Phone: ( 773 ) 883-1090; $40-$50
Runs through: Aug. 21
You can't believe everything Leslie Jordan says. And not just because he readily and repeatedly acknowledges the unreliability of his memory after 30 years of 'getting wasted' ( a disclaimer apparent in his choice of music representing the progress of his picaresque journey to wisdom and maturity ) . In the American South, from where Jordan hails, delivery has always taken precedence over accuracy, and the actor best-known for playing wincy-mincers on television comedies—most notably, Will & Grace—is, first and foremost, a raconteur with a repertoire tailor-made for baby-boom gays likewise fuzzy of recall.
His story begins at a military base in Tennessee, however, where the father he adores ( a characteristic of southern males, straight AND gay ) tells him to be grateful for his God-given talent at making people laugh. Following daddy's advice, Jordan's ribald tales of growing up queer revel in pop-culture stereotypes replicated with obligatory exaggerated irreverence.
But so what if the events in his agenda often line up a bit TOO neatly? If many of his acquaintances conform to mythic archetypes popularized in regional literature ( Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, et al. ) ? If his attempts at—yawn—contemporary relevance seem tacked on? Jordon hails from a culture where people engage in florid expressions such as ' [ he ] couldn't catch a fat man running up a hill' and 'I stuck out like a rat turd on rye'. ( Our hero, during his short-lived career as a jockey, is told that his seat on a race horse 'looks like a monkey fucking a football'. )
Jordan is also sufficiently agile, physically, to suggest the body language of his various personae—his illustration of dissimilar dance-styles of disco-habitués is especially accurate, as is his brief demonstration of how he butched up real nice for a job in an army-recruiting ad. And in the end, his yarn, however dubious its veracity, makes for a nostalgic celebration of steel-magnolia courage. Who knows? Some of it might even be true.