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Busch Fest
www.buschfest.com
By
The Idea Place
At
Mary's Attic
5400 N. Clark Street
Chicago, Illinois 60640
January 15 to February 20, 2010
Directors: Andrew Hobgood, Will Rogers
Stage Management and Production Design: Lee Stausberg
Choreography: Sophie Gatins
Producers: Arlene Malinowski, Sophie Gatins, Will Rogers
Costumes: Kate Setzer Kamphausen
Press Contacts: Will Rogers, David Rosenberg
WillRogers@gmail.com
Vampire Lesbians of Sodom
Sleeping Beauty or Coma
By
Charles Busch
(Charles Busch Bio)
Featuring:
Dan Cox, Danny Taylor, May Hollis Inboden, Anthony DiNicola,
Ed Jones, Ted Evans, Kristina Johnson,
Andrew Marikis, Sophie Gatins, Ashleigh Ross
Susan Weinrebe
February 6, 2010
Are you ready for camp? No, not the kind where you put on sun block and pack a lunch. Camp as in the over-the-top (but still tasteful... to a point) outrageous tales of vampires, fading leading ladies, melodrama, and innuendos of every sort.
The latest incarnation of Charles Busch's immortal Vampire Lesbians of Sodom raises the specter of a pre-biblical era succubus which demands virgin sacrifice. Anthony DiNicola, finessing the role of the sacrifice, is luscious as only a guy in a platinum Dolly Parton wig and Mae West eyelashes can be. He and Mary Hollis Inboden as the consumer of maidens, time travel to act up in the Roaring Twenties and the flesh pots of Las Vegas. They are a perfect pair as rivals through the ages, each a larger-than-life version of the stereotypes they play. Inboden is a woman of a thousand expressions and, in true comedienne tradition, she doesn't let her beauty get in the way of a laugh, of which there are plenty.
The twist in Sleeping Beauty or Coma is that a fairy tale can transcend any time, place, or fashion way. Set in 1960's London, a young clothing designer gets her big break, and an aspiring model rises to the top of the style pile, only to be sabotaged with an LSD-laced beverage until the expected happy ending. Dan Cox as the giraffy super model, Enid Wetwhistle, renamed Briar Rose, eats up his role as the camera's darling. Ted Evans, styled as a John Lennonesque-sounding photographer, gets his accent and manner just right in his ice cream linen suit. References to the straddling photo shoot scene in Blow-Up, chases from Beatles movies, jargon, music, and more added to the fun for anyone who survived that era.
The Busch Fest repertory program is a tribute to the varied talents of Charles Busch. His two plays above (Program A) and Theodora She-Bitch of Byzantium running with Pardon My Inquisition or Kiss The Blood Off My Castanets (Program B), are just a small slice of his work. A contender in the Sundance Film Festival and Tony award nominee (Tale of the Allergist's Wife), he currently has a play running in New York, The Divine Sister, in which he plays the lead.
Mary Hollis Inboden,
Anthony DiNicola
in "Vampire Lesbians of Sodom"
Courtesy of William Scott
Ed Jones, Danny Taylor
in "Theodora She-Bitch for Byzantium"
Courtesy of William Scott
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