Comatose beauties and deluded divas

>> Sleeping Beauty or Coma surfaces at the MainLine, while Glorious shakes up the Centaur

HAS DREAM, WON’T FLY: Rosemary Dunsmore in Glorious

by Amy Barratt

Ready for some winter camping? Then dance on down to MainLine Theatre where Vampire Lesbians of Sodom is bound to be a huge hit.

Charles Busch’s Vampire Lesbians is the main attraction, but now it can be told: director Jeremy Hechtman and the same cast of seven have added Sleeping Beauty or Coma as a curtain-raiser. We should have guessed. The two were originally presented in a double bill Off- Broadway in the ’80s, with Busch himself taking lead drag roles in both. Vampire Lesbians is an hour long, Sleeping Beauty only slightly shorter, so with an intermission between, they make for a full evening of cultish, kitschy theatre.

Set in 1960s mod London, Sleeping Beauty features some of the worst British accents I have heard in a lifetime of theatre-going, but it also has great over-the-top acting, brilliantly silly choreography (by Robin Henderson) and fabulous costumes (Kerri Strobl), all of which it shares with its companion piece. Overall, the production is far superior to last year’s Johnny Canuck and the Last Burlesque, which dragged where it should have hurtled along. Horror fans may be disappointed to discover there’s nothing remotely scary in this just-for-fun production, but most patrons will be helpless to resist its slutty charms.

Despite two of the best female roles going to a guy (Paul Van Dyck, sufficiently fawned over in last week’s column), the women in the cast really get a chance to shine. Catherine Bérubé, whom I’ve mostly seen cast as a pretty face, gets to show off a flair for comedy here. Patricia Summersett, of whom we saw a great deal in Johnny Canuck without ever discovering if she could act, is magnificent in one outrageous role after another.

NO BUSINESS IN SHOW BUSINESS

There’s a moment near the end of Glorious, now running at Centaur, when it very nearly clicks. Rosemary Dunsmore as Florence Foster Jenkins is giving her rendition of the “Queen of the Night” aria from The Magic Flute and it is reminiscent of nothing so much as your neighbour’s little yappy dog. Sporting enormous wings and a halo that bobs with every note, she is ridiculous, but she is also celestially happy. When we laugh, it is not so much mockery as that we’ve caught a small case of that happiness from her. This must surely be what audiences got from the real “Madam” in the ’40s and it must be the uplifting message the play has been trying to get to for over two hours.

Up until that point, Glorious is funny—as a person sitting behind me pointed out—in the manner of a Carol Burnett Show sketch. The writing is predictable, the comedy is physical, and even the sets look as if they have been thrown together using only cardboard, duct tape and a dream.

But perhaps that’s a perfect reflection of Jenkins’ extraordinary career. She is the prototype of all the deluded souls paraded before us weekly on American Idol. “But this is my dream!” they wail as they’re ejected by the judges for singing, like Jenkins, hopelessly off-key. There’s a widespread belief out there that “having a dream” and “believing in yourself” are all it takes to “make it” in your chosen field—usually show business. But Florence was able to live out her preposterous dream only because of a huge inheritance from her banker father. For truckloads of talentless, trailer-park divas, what hope of happiness

VAMPIRE LESBIANS OF SODOM AND
SLEEPING BEAUTY OR COMA, TO FEB.
17 AT MAINLINE (3997 ST-LAURENT), (514) 849-FEST

GLORIOUS, TO FEB. 25 AT CENTAUR
(453 ST-FRANÇOIS-XAVIER), (514) 288-3161

MIRROR ARCHIVES » Feb 08-Feb 14: INSIDE - COVER | ARCHIVES INDEX | CURRENT ISSUE