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By CHRISTOPHER WALLENBERG
Monday, March 27, 2006
"As a kid, I always loved movies with embattled heroines who against all odds survive," says East Village drag performer-turned-Broadway playwright and film star Charles Busch in the new documentary about his remarkable life.
Indeed, as "The Lady in Question is Charles Busch" makes clear, Busch became something of an embattled survivor himself—fighting the establishment, struggling against difficult odds as a theater artist and later facing his own mortality. He also sees in his mother and beloved Aunt Lillian similarities to the tragic characters played by classic leading ladies like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer—women he admired growing up and whom he sought to honor with his art.
Produced and directed by John Catania and Charles Ignacio, the film is a loving tribute to one of the most outrageous and original theater artists of the past two decades—chronicling Busch’s rise from struggling performer to a trailblazer of the downtown theater scene to award-winning Broadway playwright and, finally, star of his own hit film, "Die, Mommie, Die!" (which earned him the best performance award at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival).
While it has a tendency to gloss over some of the pain of Busch’s upbringing, his coming-out and his struggles to be cast by theater directors, the documentary is ultimately an intimate, deliciously insightful look at the gender-bending life and times of an endearing downtown icon.
Catania and Ignacio followed Busch for four-and-a-half-years, beginning in 2000 at the star-studded opening of the Busch-penned Broadway play "The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife," which went on to become a Tony Award-winning hit. The filmmakers then flash back to the performer’s suburban New York upbringing—exploring how his family instilled in him a love for opera and classic film; and how his Aunt Lillian (an Auntie Mame-like figure) took him under her wing after his mother’s death and later whisked him off to Manhattan to pursue a creative life.
The film shows Busch performing solo shows around the country, honing his craft and coming to the realization that he is perceived by theater directors as "too odd, too gay" for mainstream fare. "I became a writer out of necessity—to give myself something to act in," he explains.
Busch’s first big break came in 1984 while performing with friends on a whim at the dilapidated East Village club Limbo Lounge. Through word-of-mouth, his campy, crossing-dressing spoof "Vampire Lesbians of Sodom" became an off-Broadway hit, running an unprecedented five years and helping establish downtown as a nexus for avant-garde art and theater. His tight-knit company, Theater-in-Limbo, produced a string of brilliant, wildly irreverent original plays over the next seven years, including "Psycho Beach Party" (later made into a film) and "The Lady in Question."
For Busch, dressing in drag was never the point. And his plays were not meant simply as parodies of classic films or stars. They were affectionate tributes that illuminated both the humor and the poignancy in their source inspirations. "Charles took drag performance to another level. He was campy without being just camp," says longtime friend and Theatre-in-Limbo regular Julie Halston in the film.
Woven throughout the film are grainy, archival videos from Theatre-in-Limbo’s seminal performances and film footage from the golden age of cinema. Vignettes from a 1920s-style silent short, directed by and starring Busch (and made especially for the documentary), link together the various chapters of his life story, providing an appropriate and welcome theatricality to the proceedings.
Downtown chronicler and gossip maven Michael Musto, Busch’s longtime partner Eric Myers, B.D. Wong and various members of the Theatre-in-Limbo team are all on hand. And it wouldn’t be a film about Charles Busch without a little Hollywood glamour, provided by stars like Rosie O’Donnell and Boy George (whom Busch teamed with on the Broadway flop "Taboo"), Jason Priestley and Michelle Lee.
Although "Lady" lags at times and could have searched for some deeper insights, it colorfully illuminates Busch’s unique ability to capture the strength, spirit and over-the-top charms of those embattled, lonely yet glamorous silver-screen icons that he so admired as a child.
"The Lady in Question Is Charles Busch" is now playing.
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