by JOHN CUSTODIO

A glamorous drag queen in sexy black lingerie appears on stage. She doesn’t dance. She doesn’t lip-synch. She tells a story, a “bedtime story” about a famous experiment conducted on children in the 1960s, in which every child is given a lollipop and a choice: Either he eats his lollipop right away, or he waits until the doctor returns, at which point he’ll be awarded a second lollipop. The child is then left alone while doctors in the next room secretly scrutinize his every move.

As she tells her story, Gigi L’Amour pauses every once in a while to wrap around her neck a long feather boa. On a large video screen behind her, lollipops rain down like manna. Music, soft and vaguely familiar, begins to play, and as we learn what happens to the children—those who pass the test grow up to be solid, responsible citizens; those who fail become shiftless, marginal deviants—images of lollipops give way to footage of gay pride marches.

The music swells. Gigi, now completely wrapped in her boa, undergoes a transformation. Rapture overcomes her. She begins to channel Judy Garland, whipping her audience into a frenzy with a manic rendition of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

This is definitely not your run-of-the-mill drag act. This is 2boys, the creative brainchild of Stephen Lawson and Aaron Pollard (Gigi L’Amour and Pipi Douleur, respectively—see www.2boys.tv). They call what they do “new media cabaret.”

Call it whatever you like, it’s catching on. Kiss My Cabaret and Meow Mix audiences adore Gigi and Pipi. Halifax, Toronto, and Milan have also fallen under their spell. In 2006, 2boys plan to conquer the West: first Winnipeg, then Calgary and Vancouver. Montrealers have something to look forward to as well: Show Business, a new 2boys piece, premieres at the Projet/Projo Festival in February.

“It was inspired by the Pope,” Pollard says of the new work. “We’ll be playing with religious imagery: stained glass, icons, that kind of thing.”

“And old movies, of course,” adds Lawson. “I do Barbara Stanwyck’s monologue from All I Desire, but I’ll be dressed as a nun.” Hail Mary!