Horror picture show

It struck me as odd, when I was walking through that annoying passageway between Port Authority and Times Square, that the revised La Cage Aux Folles posters were billing the show as “It’s The Birdcage…on Broadway!” OK, sure, kind of, but it was a play, and then a movie, and then a musical, and then The Birdcage, and then two revivals, so this logic is kind of like when I told Jeffrey Kahane that he “looked just like” (his son) Gabriel Kahane when he played the piano. Well yes, but one came first.

I was distracted, however, from this La Cage tagline nonsense, when I saw that the Priscilla Queen of the Desert posters next it did not feature the three drag queens that the show centers on, but rather three, attractive, genuine females, smiling away, safely welcoming us all to their family-friendly show of sparkles. Maybe that’s just one poster, I thought, part of a bigger campaign with all the characters’ photos. But no no – the website homepage is the same:

As is the sign at the box office:

Wherefore art thou, cross-dressers? Oh look, here’s one!

TRUST ME! That little stick figure with the flowing stick hair is a Man in Drag! She’s riding a shoe on the top of a bus! But don’t worry, tourists and parents: Priscilla Queen of the Desert is actually about these nice ladies with Marge Simpson hair and natural-born cleavage.

The only other ads I’ve seen are simply a list of popular songs in the show: “I Say A Little Prayer”, “I Will Survive”, etc.. Where is Will Swenson, the show’s star? Or the truly excellent Tony Sheldon? Nick Adams, who burns more calories during the course of the show than I do in a week’s time? Nowhere to be found. Is this because they play men dressed as a women? Let’s have them do PSAs, but we’re going to put the real ladies on the posters. 

I went and saw the thing last week, thinking to myself perhaps they toned down the movie for the tourists and families. Maybe these three poster girls have big parts! No, gentle readers, no. At one point in the show, a joke about an exploding Tampon is made. At another, “F*** You F*****s” is spray-painted on the bus. One character pops ping pong balls out of her…well, you know. Sex is referenced in nearly ever scene, which is all well and fine, but what, exactly, is the show’s marketing team trying to achieve by advertising this musical with three women who have no speaking roles or character names? (All three are just called “Diva”.) I would be OK if the poster was just going to be the stick figure in the desert, I suppose, but if we’re going with photos, why these three women and not the three (she)male leads? Are you afraid the Mama Mia crowd won’t go for it? My memory is a little fuzzy, but I don’t remember the hate crime scene in Mama Mia. Did I miss it? Was it during “Fernando”?

As my sister pointed out, this is like if The Rocky Horror Picture Show (which came out, might I add, in 1975) had used a picture of Brad Majors and Janet Weiss’ wedding on the posters instead of this:

I guess this would have been the ad campaign for the 2011 Broadway show version:

“It’s about two nerds in love…GOTCHA it’s about a sweet transvestite from transexual Transylvania and he’s building a man for himself!”

What I resent most, really, is not that tourists and families will be “tricked” into the ping pong popping and exploding Tampon jokes. Maybe it’s good for them. Better, maybe they’ll like it. Gloria Gaynor et al. will get them through. What upsets me is this: if I am going to be soapboxed for 2 hours and 30 long minutes about how people will accept me no matter who I am, who I love, how I dress, or what operations I’ve had, I had better see some serious drag on posters.

In lighter news, I went to Sister Act tonight, and I would say the highlight was when an actual nun walked up to Ben Vereen at intermission and asked him to autograph her program. I’m sure glad I can check “watch a nun get Ben Vereen’s autograph at a musical version of Sister Act” off the bucket list!