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| Poster for The Sensuous Woman Aug. 10, 2007 at the Renburg Theater, Los Angeles |
I spent most of 2007 dancing in The Sensuous Woman, comedian Margaret
Cho’s boundary pushing, gender-bending burlesque
and variety show. The production melded Margaret’s outrageous stand up comedy
with classic as well as post-modern striptease plus a slew of hilarious song-and-dance
numbers. “Sen Wo”, as we affectionately
called it in homage to J-Lo, originally started as a one-off benefit show at the
historic Los Angeles nightclub El Cid. It immediately sold out and we were
asked to do a residency there, which lasted several months. That led to dates
in San Francisco and an appearance on Fire Island, New York’s famed gay
enclave. Eventually a tour was booked, which included a week in Chicago and a
six-week Off Broadway run in New York City.
The show was wild by anyone’s standards. Margaret stripped langorously
to classical opera until she was totally nude before parting her huge feathered fans
to reveal a disturbingly realistic flaccid penis. Transgender comedian Ian Harvie’s set
focused on his misadventures trying to get a bag of dildos through the TSA
security checkpoint at an airport. Selene Luna,
a 3’ 10” comedian and burlesque dancer known as “The Pocket Venus”, rode onstage in a
vintage baby carriage before toddling
around stripping out of a christening
gown and frilly bonnet. Liam Sullivan performed
his hit song Shoes as his teenage nerd-drag alter ego Kelly; queen-sized
burlesque legend Dirty Martini did “The
Patriot Act”, which concluded with her pulling an endless string of dollar bills
out of her ass. Mustachioed dancer Ryan Heffington rampaged through Michael
Jackson’s Dirty Diana dressed in acid-washed 1980’s denim and a miniscule
G-string, doing splits in over-the-knee platform boots before climbing
over the chairs to assault audience members with uber-raunchy lap dances. In
comparison, my Wizard Of Oz burlesque
act as a slutty, stripping Dorothy Gale who gets molested by a Flying Monkey
looked tame.
All prurient lunacy aside, the
entire cast was always just a little stunned at the show’s popularity- who
would’ve ever thought that that an audience
made up of about ninety-five percent queer men would flock to a show which
primarily featured women twirling tasseled pasties?
In order to up the ante even
further, it was decided that for the tour, we’d add in a couple of Busby
Berkely-esque group numbers for the opening and a grand finale. We moved into another residency, this time at
the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Renburg Theater in Hollywood to woodshed the new,
improved show before taking it on the road. We rehearsed at the Center through
most of June and July, before finally moving into the theater itself for our
dress and technical rehearsals. We were
very pleased with the venue; in addition to state-of-the-art sound and lights,
the Renburg featured modern plush chairs, which reclined for optimal audience
comfort.
During our first tech
rehearsal, Ian and I decided to go out into the middle of the house to see what the lighting looked like from the audience. Since it’s always difficult to know what the
stage lighting looks like when you’re actually standing under it, we decided to
take photos for reference.
As we whipped out our smart phones, Margaret was onstage going through
her “Chairman Meow” burlesque number. She was
in mid-striptease, wearing a Chinese Army uniform, her twin braids peeking out from under her
Mao hat.
“Hey, look at this,” Ian
cried, perturbed, brandishing his phone under my nose,
“It looks like it’s snowing
in here! ”
The photo he’d taken captured
the entire theater as well as the stage, and the whole picture was chock full
of orbs. Some people think that orbs-the white or translucent spheres that appear as
anomalies on photos -are merely dust particles on the camera lens, but others
believe they’re a visual manifestation of spirits. Many are convinced that when
orbs show up on film, it’s a sign that angels are nearby.
As Ian aggressively dusted
off his phone screen and camera lens, just in case of dust, I snapped a photo on my phone... and the resulting
picture was exactly the same as his.
Ian cocked his head, arched an eyebrow and
asked,
“Do you think these are orbs?”
We immediately both wondered
out loud about the possibility of the
Renburg being haunted, as many theaters are reputed to be. In fact,
historically, so many theaters are alleged to be inhabited by ghosts that for
the past decade, the famed New York Theater publication Playbill actually tracks- and publishes - sightings of apparitions and other reports
of paranormal activity in it’s annual Broadway Yearbook. After a “spirited” discussion, we both decided that since the
Renburg Theater was built recently, it probably wasn’t haunted after all.
Just then, the theater’s director
Jon Imperato came up to us, asking if we were pleased with the venue. We assured him we were, and making small
talk, Ian asked how many people the theater held. Jon’s answer stunned us into
silence.
“ We hold five hundred, “ he said, making a
sweeping gesture,
“...And every seat in here is
dedicated to honor the memory someone who died of HIV or AIDS-related
complications. There’s a plaque on the back of every chair.”
As Jon walked off to check on
the lighting, Ian and I looked around. Indeed, every damn chair in the place
had a plaque on it, with the name, birth and death dates of the individual it
honored.
Glancing down at our phones
to see the orb-filled photos once more, Ian and I locked eyes.
Ian wrinkled his forehead as
he surveyed the theater. He nodded
imperceptibly a few times as though he was processing his thoughts, then exhaled
slowly and said enthusiastically,
“Well… I sure hope all you guys enjoy the show!”
#
The story you've just read is from my forthcoming book (Super) Natural Woman which will be published by Punk Hostage Press in 2016.
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| The Sensuous Woman: left to right Ian Harvie, Margaret Cho, Dirty Martini,Ryan Heffington, Selene Luna, me |
Come say hi to me on the inter-webs:
Twitter:
@pleasantGehman1
Instagram: @princessofhollywood
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