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105101EX<br />
straightforward actually. Our choreographer<br />
gives us the movement and the sentiment, and<br />
we try to juice it up as much as we can. I have<br />
gone to a few drag bars and interviewed a few<br />
lovely drag queens to try and mine any helpful<br />
hints or tricks that might help.”<br />
Meanwhi<strong>le</strong>, Canada’s most famous transsexual<br />
Nina Arsenault says the mainstreaming of drag<br />
culture has dul<strong>le</strong>d drag’s cutting edge. So productions<br />
like her one-transwoman show The Silicone<br />
Diaries (a tour-de-force retelling of her life)<br />
have become – as America’s one-man gay-AP<br />
Rex Wockner recently noted – “the new way to<br />
terrorize the bourgeoisie. Gay is so passé.”<br />
Or as Nina told me herself, “I don’t differentiate<br />
between gay peop<strong>le</strong> and straight peop<strong>le</strong> anymore.<br />
I differentiate between queer peop<strong>le</strong> and<br />
normative peop<strong>le</strong>. Normative are those who buy<br />
into mainstream ideals of beauty, of where they<br />
should live and what is an acceptab<strong>le</strong> lifesty<strong>le</strong>.<br />
Because gay peop<strong>le</strong> can now get married and<br />
adopt kids, a lot of gay peop<strong>le</strong> have become<br />
[conservative] too – and in some ways just as<br />
judgmental as straight peop<strong>le</strong> used to be. That’s an unfortunate development in [today's] gay community. I just<br />
don’t fit in.”<br />
So as I sat watching Priscilla Queen of the Desert: The Musical at Toronto’s Princess of Wa<strong>le</strong>s Theatre before it moved<br />
on to Broadway – where it is currently getting rave reviews – as a gay man who enjoys drag, I felt curiously<br />
neutered. Which is why Gardenia – whi<strong>le</strong> melancholic – is such a breath of fresh air.<br />
“Frank and I decided we just couldn’t have a show with men dressed in drag for 90 minutes, so we first asked the<br />
cast to dress as men,” Platel explains. “That gave us something to build on and it’s really the secret of the performance.<br />
It <strong>le</strong>ts the audience connect with the characters as<br />
peop<strong>le</strong> first, then we see them as performers.”<br />
The company has performed Gardenia over 120 times to<br />
rave reviews across Europe since its premiere in Ghent,<br />
Belgium, in June 2010. And whi<strong>le</strong> it is performed in<br />
French, Gardenia crosses cultural and linguistic lines and<br />
ultimately is a universal meditation about age and beauty.<br />
“All kinds of peop<strong>le</strong> everywhere have fal<strong>le</strong>n head over<br />
heels for Gardenia, even fashion designer Jean-Paul<br />
Gaultier, who was so crazy about the performers that he<br />
came to see them three or four times! He even made special<br />
gifts for each of the performers,” Platel says. “And recently<br />
in Barcelona our cast met the stars of Yo Say Asi,<br />
the movie which inspired Gardenia. That was very special.”<br />
Platel is c<strong>le</strong>arly happy his play has connected with audiences.<br />
“Gardenia is not just about age and beauty, but<br />
also about how you decide to live your life and whether it<br />
is right for you. There is also a lot of melancholy in this<br />
play, for sure, but there is also much joy and ce<strong>le</strong>bration.<br />
Personally, I watch our cast – many of whom had no theatre<br />
experience before this play – and here they are touring<br />
the world! They are not retired, sitting at home<br />
knitting – they are touring the world! It’s very rewarding<br />
to witness their joy.”<br />
qRichard BURNETT : burnett@videotron.ca<br />
158 <strong>Fugues</strong>.com juin 2011<br />
You can read Richard Burnett’s national queer-issues column<br />
Three Dollar Bill online at www.bugsburnett.blogspot.com.
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