10 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE October 11, 2002
eveningsout
Busch enters the mainstream with Allergist's Wife
by Kaizaad Kotwal
Columbus-The Tale of the Allergist's Wife has become somewhat of a Broadway phenomenon, and is still playing to packed houses in New York. Almost three years after its off-Broadway première, Charles Busch's uproarious comedy is still one of the hottest tickets in town.
Allergist's Wife is coming to Columbus to tickle our funny bones and to knock us out of our seats with wild and raucous laughter. The touring production stars Valerie Harper, better known for her role as Rhoda on The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Busch, who is an acclaimed drag diva himself, is the author and star of many plays including Psycho Beach Party and Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. On film, he has appeared in Addams Family Values. It Could Happen To You and the film version of Psycho Beach Party
The wife in the title is Marjorie Taub, who wrestles with her demons in a catastrophic mid-life crisis. But never has depression been so funny and never has a mid-life crisis brought about such an outrageous set of responses from its victim.
Marjorie is an avid consumer of high culture, who dresses in chic designer
Do you feel like you are treading water through life's emotions? There's help.
▼ Access Behavioral Care w
Individual & Couple Therapy Psychiatric Medication Management Preferred Providers for Most Health Plans
West
(440) 777-7574
3 Locations to Serve You
25221 Country Club Blvd. #201
North Olmsted
East
(216) 295-9295 20600 Chagrin Blvd. #950 Shaker Heights
Lake County
(440) 974-9974
7200 Center St #100
Mentor
cleveland Public theatre
Presents Jeffery Roberson as
Varla Jean Merman in
I've
Got The Music In Me!
October 10 20, 2002 The purported love-child of Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgnine is back at Cleveland Public Theatre with a brand new show that includes new videos, new songs, and a whole lotta Varla.
CPT
Call 216.631.2727 for tickets
www.cptonline.org
6415 Detroit Avenue at W. 65th
Free Parking and Never A Handling Fee
wviz
-
Ohio Arts Counc
CLEVELAND COM
steady
I member of
COMMUNITY
SHARES
Valerie Harper as Marjorie Taub
meltdown in a Disney store.
clothing and has lofty artistic and intellectual aspirations that she hopes to fill her excess of leisure time with.
The play opens with Marjorie simpering and wallowing in her unique
Own brand of the blues, brought about by the death of her adored therapist. This is exacerbated by her recent public
Her husband, Ira, runs a clinic for the homeless who suffer from allergies. Marjorie's aged and combative mother, Frieda lives just down the hall. She is chronically obsessed with her digestive tract and its related functions. And their Iraqi doorman is along for the ride as well.
The lives of Marjorie, her husband and mother are thrown into even further chaos
with the arrival of Marjorie's long lost childhood gal pal, Lee. She is a carefree soul with a list of touches with celebrity that would make anyone melt in envy. Lee embodies glamour in its deepest and darkest senses.
Her sultry appeal and her ability to drop names like a walking Who's Who makes her very attractive to Marjorie, who is searching for some meaning in her life.
This creates a whirlwind atmosphere where Marjorie is forced to question her own sanity, and she and Ira venture into taboo areas of sexuality.
Marjorie's potential attraction to Lee is the stuff of much angst and comedy in the second act.
The play is sheer entertainment, brought to us by a playwright who has thus far succeeded only on the fringes.
With The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, Busch has entered the mainstream and yet he still works with integrity, honesty and candid freshness.
This is a must-see play for any fans of comedy. It makes its only Ohio stop in Columbus at the Palace Theatre between October 15 and 20. Showtimes are Tuesday through Friday at 8:00 p.m., Saturday at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 1:00 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Calll 614-224-7654 ext. 226 for ticket information.
Dancer's role makes a childhood fantasy come true
by Anthony Glassman
Cleveland-As a child, everyone wants to run away and join the circus. It's an almost universal dream that ties the childhoods of millions of people together.
Few get the chance, but for those who do,
their seats before finally handing them off to ushers, and played matchmaker, leading members of couples in different directions and seating them with completely random strangers, to the mortification of his victims and the joy of the audience.
The 36-year old performer enjoys the openness that the complete anonymity of his role gives him.
A voice on the radio tells Mark Ward that no photography is allowed during Cirque du Soleil's Quidam.
it is the experience of a lifetime.
Case in point: a young gay man, born in Mexico, raised in Texas, skating the line between black and Latino, named Mark Ward.
Ward plays the principal character in Quidam, the touring production from the French-Canadian Cirque du Soleil, under the big top at the Nautica Pavilion until October 20.
"I bridge the gap between the public and the performers," Ward noted. "I break the fourth wall."
And he does so with sardonic wit. While waiting for stragglers at the opening night performance to be seated, he turned audience members' heads back towards the stage, lod others on a wild-goose chase looking for
"It was the first job in my career where I went in with all my cards on the table and they totally accepted me," he said, noting that he is far from the only LGBT member of the cast in Quidam. Cirque du Soleil's administration has, in fact, terminated homophobic staff members. "I've seen it happen," Ward confided.
As for Quidam itself, Ward believes that it is the most engaging Cirque production for gay audi-
ences.
"They don't forcefeed you with an idea," he noted. "They give you morsels and
let you chew on them, so you might come up with a completely dif-
ferent idea than the person next to you. We're more sensitive to some of the emotional aspects."
"Quidam" refers to the anonymous passerby, a stranger in the crowd who is unknown until he deigns to introduce himself. It's the most structured show that Cirque du Soleil has put together in terms of plot, a cross between Antione de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
"I've done 2,000 shows of Quidam and I'm still touched by it," Ward said. "It still speaks to my gay experience."
For more information about Quidam and Cirque du Soleil's other shows, log onto www.cirquedusoleil.com.