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Girlesque

by by Sean Owens
SF Examiner review February 13, 2001(Joe Mader)

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'Girlesque' not at all a drag

By Joe Mader
Sean Owens' solo show is the damnedest thing. A one-man drag vaudeville, it invites comparisons to John Cameron Mitchell's "Hedwig andhe Angry Inch" (which still hasn't come to the Bay Area for some reason). But where "Hedwig" is essentially a tremendously entertaining, hard-rocking goof, "Girlesque" is a sweet and affecting tr accomplishes here, but it's astounding.

Owens has a serene, moonbeam-ish presence: Tall and wispy-thin, with a smooth, oval-shaped face and long thin nose, he's a cross between Sandy Duncan and a Modigliani painting. "Girlesque" is drag cabaret, where he portrays the women who have shaped his life, some of them clearly fictional composites, some of them so finely and delicately detailed, you believe wholeheartedly in their existence. Each new wig Owens wears transforms his face. And each woman gets a wonderful song, with lyrics by Owens and music by Don Seaver.

The first act, set in 1980, opens with Owens as Sister Mary Nightmare, a nine-foot-tall nun who terrorizes her students, especially the young Sean Owens, an overachiever who turns in the final draft of his paper weeks before the first draft is due. Sister Mary gives him an "F" for grandstanding. "Show your work," she urges him. She also sets the scene: After denouncing the young, unseen Owens, she informs the audience that Sean is "the protagonist" of this show, and then with all the certainty in the world, she gives a fallacious etymology of "protagonist." (She owes a little bit to Christopher Durang's Sister Mary Ignatius.) Railing at another unseen student to behave, she summons all the forces of Theater, proclaiming, "I am only pretending you exist, and I can stop pretending at any time." Her song "Hide Your Light" is a cautionary sermon against the sin of pride: "Though the diamond may be brilliant, concrete's just as resilient."

Owens next tells of arriving home from school to find his closets full of dresses -- his mother needs the extra storage space -- and a drag queen is born. As Agent 12, a drag diva so named for both Owens' age at the time and his dress size, he sings "Let the Danger Come," and struggles to get both into and out of a dress before his mother discovers him.

Owen's most brilliant creations are his own mother, who dotes on her adopted, brilliant and effeminate son, and his Aunt Fanny, the brassy, witty, common-law wife of his uncle. Wearing a blonde wig as the mother, Owens prepares for a party and talks intimately to her 12-year-old son. Describing Aunt Fanny's unmarried relationship with Uncle Patrick, which her husband disapproves of, she urges her son to keep it "a secret between best friends." With incomparable tenderness, she sings "Little Yellow Roses" about the day she picked Sean up from the adoption agency. He was dressed in a nightshirt with yellow roses on it -- they were out of the blue nightshirts usually given to boys.

Aunt Fanny, who can't resist giving young Sean her jewelry when he asks for it, used to be a dancer. She describes experimental dance as "You know, 'Woman-gives-birth-to-herself' garbage." She tells Sean to give Sister Mary a break: "She's a Bride of Christ, and we know He's not putting out." And she describes Sean as "the niecest nephew I know," pun intended. She judges no one, and conveys an intoxicating liberty, a sense of myriad possibilities in how to live one's life. Even lurching around drunkenly, she's extraordinary.

Owens is as fond of complicated metaphors as he is of tricky dramatic structures. Another drag queen is "like a mylar party hat blowing through the halls of a Transylvanian castle." His women are also given terrific epigrams to speak: "Being spiritual is a wonderful thing -- talking about it is creepy." He has a just-adequate singing voice that could stand to be miked, as the acoustics of the Exit Theatre and the decibels of the three-piece band sometimes drown out his vocals. But he sings the songs immersed in character, and they're lovely. In portraying the women who have taught him, who have accepted him and who have loved him, Owens creates a work of compassion, of empathy and of freedom.

For his finale, Owens appears as Carol Channing, of all people. Aware that his impersonation may have nothing to do with the real Channing, he finds in her the ability to triumph over the setbacks and limitations of the world -- its cruelties, its disappointments. When his Carol sings the beautiful "Shine Like Diamonds," Owens' eyes sparkle and his face beams.

Directed by Libby Cox, Owens' "Girlesque" is an audacious act of transcendence -- a demonstration of the various, mysterious aspects of love, and an illumination of the power of performance. His drag-queen life of artifice becomes art. Owens doesn't shine like diamonds -- the facets there would be too limiting. He shines like humanity.
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