GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
MAY 15, 1998
Evenings Out
'I'm still the big dyke on the block'
But Lea DeLaria finds that Broadway lets her explore other roles
by Doreen Cudnik
Cleveland-Life is good for Lea DeLaria these days.
With several films in the can, a newly-signed book deal, and a project in the works for HBO, it's hard to believe that this is the same woman who stormed stages fifteen years ago— shaved head, piercings and all-billed only as "The Fuckin' Dyke."
Now, she is the toast of Broadway, having earned a Drama Desk nomination for Best Actress in a Musical for her critically-acclaimed role as Hildy Esterhazy in On the Town, and a coveted Theater World Award a distinction that firmly establishes her as one of the brightest new stars along the Great White Way.
DeLaria is currently in Cleveland for a threeweek run with the Broadway musical Chicago. Set in the jazz clubs of Chicago in the late 1920s, the show revolves around the story of Roxie Hart, a married, aspiring vaudeville performer who murders her lover, then hires a fasttalking, ladies-man lawyer to dupe the media and the public and get her acquitted.
DeLaria plays a women's prison matron, "Mama" Morton, a role she says she has wanted to play since seeing the original Bob Fosseinspired production in 1975.
"My take on [Mama Morton] is she's just a big, bad, charming butch, and that's the way I play her," DeLaria said. "I have a real fun time presenting this really positive butch character, and people love her.
DeLaria added that while a positive portrayal of a very butch woman is something that the gay community may have seen her do before, "To the theater world, this is very new." When DeLaria belts out the number "When You're Good to Mama" during Act I, she brings a whole new meaning to the song.
Ma Morton is quite a departure from the last two characters DeLaria has portrayed. She describes On the Town's Hildy as "the most rabidly heterosexual person on the planet," and says that being chosen for the part signals that a significant change is taking place in the industry.
"New York theater is the only place in the industry that will allow me to be heterosexual,” DeLaria said. "Television and film--it's disgusting because they tend to put you in a box, which Ellen has just discovered. On stage, I'm allowed to act, and my lesbianism becomes a side issue which is very exciting. Especially when it's my lesbianism we're talking about. Because I was never a 'lesbian,' I was this big dyke-this bad-ass, loudmouth dyke. It's amazing that they're letting me do this, and I'm thrilled. It's all I've wanted to do since I was eight years old.”
Following the rave reviews for her portrayal of Hildy, DeLaria then appeared as Marryin' Sam in Li'l Abner, a role that was written for Stubby Kaye in the late '50s.
"When I got the phone call [offering her the part], I was like, 'You're kidding, right?" "DeLaria recalls. She found the role difficult to play-not because Sam is a man, but because, she says, "he's such a likable guy.” "I usually play these wise-cracking, sarcastic, smartaleck pushy broad characters," DeLaria said, “so I had to find a place where this nice person could emerge from me. I had to dig really deep!”
Ironically, she was not required to do any dancing in Chicago-a show that is driven by dancing. She was, however, asked to hoof it in both On the Town and Abner.
"I am asked to darice, but I'm never asked to do huge dance routines,” DeLaria said. “They say, Can you shuffle this way? Can you move your hands here?" and then eight people dance around you and make you look fabulous.".:
Her recent success on Broadway will keep her plenty busy for the foreseeable future. She'll tour with Chicago until mid-August, when she goes into rehearsals for On the Town, which opens on Broadway September 29. With director George Wolfe behind the project, DeLaria—and the New York theater community—is predicting a long run. "Wolfe only directs hits, they say," DeLaria said.
Homo Heights, a film she did with Quentin Crisp, is currently making the festival circuit, and Edge of Seventeen, filmed in northern Ohio last year, is in its rough-cut version.
She is also shopping around the screenplay of Leslie Fienberg's Stone Butch Blues, which she acquired the rights to a few years ago.
Her one-woman play, Smell My Music, in which DeLaria plays a woman who has an affair with the daughter of a Mafia boss, gets murdered as a result, and spends the rest of the play "having an argument with God about why I should not be damned," had to be back-burnered because of her schedule. Hopefully, she says, the project will appear as an HBO special sometime in the spring or summer of next year.
And somewhere in all this frenzy of activity, DeLaria will sit down to write Lea's Book of Rules for the World for Bantam-Doubleday. But you won't hear DeLaria complaining about being too busy-she's loving every minute of this.
"With each new thing that happens, I think: Who would of thought that walking out on stage as a screaming brat-child the way I did when I started doing stand-up, making fun of Holly Near and the Olivia girls, that I'd end up here?"
She knew she'd arrived when her best friend, whose parents live
"My take on Mama Morton is she's just a big, bad, charming butch, and that's the way I play her."
in Cincinnati, sent her the crossword puzzle from a recent Cincinnati Enquirer.
"The answer to 58 across was 'Thompson or DeLaria,' and it's three letters," she said, not quite believing it herself. "Can you believe it? Lea DeLaria in a crossword puzzle! Now I'm going to be a Jeopardy answer!"
She's also been asked to appear at a June tribute to Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall on the same bill with Garland's daughters Liza Minnelli and Lorna Luft.
"They want me to sing 'Get Happy'," DeLaria said. “I am living a faggot's wet dream... and I'm having the time of my life doing it!"
Those in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community who have witnessed DeLaria's rise to the top don't have to worry that she'll abandon them, she said. Doing eight shows a week during the months of May and June, including Saturday and Sunday matinees, will make it difficult to appear at an Pride rallies, but, DeLaria added, "If I'm in the neighborhood and anybody wants to ask and I can make it happen, I will certainly make it happen." "I'm a dyke, and I've been a part of this community for a long time, and I'm not going to turn my back on this community," DeLaria said, adding that she made that very clear to the William Morris agency when she signed on with them.
"When someone calls me up and says, ‘Do you want to do a benefit?' I don't want to find out two years later that they asked me and [William Morris] didn't pass it on to me because there was no money involved. I'm still the big dyke on the block."
Chicago is appearing at the Palace Theater in Cleveland through May 24. Tickets are available at the Playhouse Square box office, Advantix, and at 216241-6000 or 800-766-6048.