It’s been a different kind of thrill down at the Hypnodrome as Thrillpeddlers enters the 11th month of extensions for its runaway smash hit, The Cockettes’ musical Pearls Over Shanghai. One hundred performances strong (as of May 1) and with no end in sight, Thrillpeddlers has slyly redefined its brand of thrills to embrace a wholly different genre besides the Grand Guignol revivalism for which it is best known; setting aside its usual quotient of twisted naturalism and splattered gore for the rambunctious, over-the-top glitter and glam of Theatre of the Ridiculous.

But the two art forms are not entirely unrelated. After all, a staple of Grand Guignol was the steamy sex farce, a fitting description for the ecstatic nudity, cross-dressing, masturbation, and defloration running wild throughout Pearls. And just as the endangered-species quality of Grand Guignol first prompted Thrillpeddlers artistic director Russell Blackwood to begin mounting performances of it in 1991, so too did the precarious posterity of Theatre of the Ridiculous spark a similar interest.

“I didn’t want it to become a footnote in theatre history, or just something you read about,” Blackwood explains. “It turned me on — the fact that it was as marginalized and as conceivably to be forgotten in the way I was concerned Grand Guignol might be.” In 2008, Thrillpeddlers took the slapstick scripts of Theodora, She-Bitch of Byzantium by Charles Busch and Charles Ludlum’s Jack and the Beanstalk and mounted its first “Theatre of the Ridiculous” festival, eventually taking the whole show on the road — along with an hour-long rendition of Pearls Over Shanghai — to the HOWL festival in New York City’s East Village.

“It went really, really great,” Blackwood said. “We had two full separate bills that played in repertory with each other. And afterward, seeing a videotape of that made me realize just what to do with Pearls.”

Of course it wasn’t just Blackwood’s vision that made the Pearls revival possible; it was also the ongoing collaboration with musical director and original Cockette Scrumbly Koldewyn, who painstakingly brought together songs and scripting from multiple versions of the show despite having scarce archived material — save memories and a few recordings — to work from. Koldewyn also has been an instrumental force behind the upcoming revival of Hot Greeks, the only other “book” musical from the original Cockettes repertoire, (opening at the Hypnodrome May 2). He also accompanies the shows nightly on the piano.

One particularly interesting aspect about Pearls is the way it has brought together multiple generations worth of queer performance fixtures: the original founder of Theatre Rhinoceros, Lanny Baugniet, who performs an opium freakout clad in skintight silver lamé; Jef Valentine, whose Madame Gin Sling drips with Frank N. Furter juice and alternates with original Cockette Rumi Missabau; the eternally robust Steven Satyricon as a rosy-cheeked Naval Captain with a mysterious past; and the role of Russian VIP escort Petrushka, serially portrayed by no fewer than four drag Grand Dames.

But by no means is Theatre of the Ridiculous meant to be viewed solely through a queer lens. Blackwood estimates that slightly less 50 percent of the cast is queer-identified. And the myriad Thrillpeddlers core company members, who started off as ghoulish Grand Guignolians, mesh well with their gaily glittering counterparts.

“What struck me (about Theatre of the Ridiculous) was that it’s a decidedly queer art form, yet always seems to have involved men and women, gays and straights,” Blackwood said. “It’s also a wholly American movement, which you can almost look at as a triangle that goes from New York’s Playhouse of the Ridiculous, to John Waters in Baltimore, and the Cockettes out here.” From French horror-show to all-American glam, Thrillpeddlers has seamlessly expanded its niche: resurrection.

Original article at http://www.sfbg.com/2010/04/27/thrill-divine

Not only has “Pearls Over Shanghai” survived a flash flood that closed it down for several weeks, the good-humored, gender-bending show is hosting guests of national prominence and questionable tastes — such as John Waters.

The director of the 1972 cult classic “Pink Flamingos” (as well as the original “Hairspray”) was in the house at the refurbished Hypnodrome Theatre (in an alley on 10th Street near Bryant) as Thrillpeddlers got 2010 off to a grand start following a water main break that made the news and caused the ragtag troupe to cancel holiday performances.

The psychedelic comic mock operetta first was performed some 40 years ago by The Cockettes, a drag queen troupe known for wild midnight shows at the Palace Theater in North Beach.

Two original members of the group appear in this crazy, big-hearted reincarnation: Musical director and piano accompanist “Scrumbly” Koldewyn (who also wrote the show’s catchy music) is Ilsa, while Rumi Missabu (alternating with Arturo Galster) plays Madam Gin Sling.

The mostly unimportant plot combines characters from sailors and whores to American girl singers (a trio) and a Russian diva whose fortunes (and misfortunes) meet up in exotic 1937 Shanghai.

But the Busby Berkeley-inspired numbers are nothing but fun, particularly those with the uniformly spirited ensemble, who almost outnumber the audience in the compact theater, a converted warehouse.

Also notable on reopening night were Eric Tyson Wertz as Lili Frustrata, a street peddler selling her wares in the lovely song “Apples and Won Ton” whose aura draws in Capt. Eddy (Steven Satyricon). Eddy, meanwhile, wants to save the aforementioned Wobblin’ Robin Sisters — Delightful (Adeola Role), Deluxe (Liza Bouterage) and Delicious (Miss Sheldra) — from succumbing to the dangers of the Orient.

Sin and evil are the order of the day, in songs such as “Opium,” “Palace of Trash” and “White Slavery” — not to mention the sex and a couple of shots of nudity, just to make sure proceedings stay over the top.

Still, the fantastic glittering costumes by Tihara, Kara Emry and Louise Jarmilowicz are eye-popping, as is the makeup, under direction of consultant Melanie Paulina.

During January performances, the goofy glamour continues in a post-show “afterglow” number, again based on previous Cockettes shows. On Jan. 9, decked out in resplendent colors, the troupe presented “Jewels of Paris,” a Folies Bergere-style dance in which each of the eight performers represented a different gem.

From the San Francisco Examiner, January 21, 2010

In November 1971, a San Francisco theater troupe became the laughingstock of New York. The Cockettes were a ragtag bunch of acid-tripping Bay Area misfits who had started performing less than two years earlier at the Palace Theater in North Beach. Rex Reed happened to catch a local performance and wrote breathless praise in his nationally syndicated column, calling them “a landmark in the history of new, liberated theater.” Truman Capote echoed his enthusiasm. And so it came to pass that a few months later, the leading lights of New York’s arts scene, including John Lennon, Robert Rauschenberg, and Gore Vidal, turned out for the Cockettes’ feverishly hyped East Coast debut.

Then the curtain went up. Apparently the New York crowd didn’t expect a minimally rehearsed musical revue starring glittery hippies in sloppy, over-the-top drag. Within the first few minutes of Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma, the audience revolted. Angela Lansbury was one of the first to bolt for the door. Even Andy Warhol didn’t stick around. The Cockettes, as it turned out, were a psychedelic camp spectacle that simply didn’t travel well.

After a few miserable weeks in New York, they returned to San Francisco to develop and perform some of their best-known shows, including Journey to the Center of Uranus (in which Divine appeared as a giant crab singing, “If there’s a crab on Uranus, you know you’ve been loved”). They disbanded before the end of 1972, largely forgotten even by those they almost certainly influenced, from David Bowie to the creators of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Fortunately, nothing that good remains forgotten for long. 2002 brought a celebrated documentary (titled simply The Cockettes), which featured a stunning collection of archival footage. That sparked a renewal of interest that culminated in 2009, the 40th anniversary of their first appearance at the Palace. Just last month, SFMOMA held a rare screening of the troupe’s films, including Tricia’s Wedding, a 1971 drag interpretation of Tricia Nixon’s nuptials. And most notably of all, the Cockettes made a triumphant return to the stage with Thrillpeddlers’ revival of the mock-operetta Pearls over Shanghai, which opened in June and just keeps getting extended (at this point, you can buy tickets through the end of April).

Of all the local shows I saw in 2009, Pearls was in many ways the best. Other productions were more polished; a few were nearly as inventive. But minute for minute, you simply won’t find a more joyously zany show in San Francisco. Nor will you find a more loving tribute to the city’s grand legacy as a Western outpost of unapologetic depravity.

Think of it as The Mikado by way of Ziggy Stardust, with a little John Waters thrown in to keep the audience from getting too comfortable. The story is primarily a vehicle for outlandish costumes and secondarily an excuse to exploit the cast’s tendencies toward exhibitionism. One major storyline concerns an American naval captain (Steven Satyricon) who takes a Chinese bride named Lili Frustrata (Eric Tyson Wertz); another follows three virginal American girls (Adeola Role, Liza Bouterage, and Miss Sheldra), who find themselves sold into slavery in 1937 Shanghai. (Imagine the World War II–era Andrews Sisters in an opium den, and you’re on the right track.)

A few minor caveats: The show is even more politically incorrect than it sounds — if you can’t deal with the ethnic stereotypes in Flower Drum Song, then you’re definitely not up for this. And Thrillpeddlers isn’t kidding when they say that the show isn’t appropriate for kids, unless of course you don’t mind your children watching leather- and mesh-clad cast members in an opium-fueled orgy.

The show relies crucially on inspiration from a few of the surviving Cockettes. Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn, who wrote the show’s 24 songs, is on hand as musical director and accompanist. Rumi Missabu reprises his role as Madame Gin Sling from the original 1970 production. And Billy Bowers and Tahara, both original Cockettes, helped create the costumes, including a getup for Mother Fu (Russell Blackwell) that makes the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence look demure.

The result is by far the most successful Thrillpeddlers show I’ve seen. Long a purveyor of local Grand Guignol fare, the company churns out gleefully tasteless productions of little-seen works by long-dead authors. Its members have an obvious fondness for discovering and performing obsolete kitsch — a task both nostalgic and heroic, even if most of their shows involve some form of disembowelment.

Their M.O. is to string three or four short plays together, alternating between horror and farce, hitting and missing in roughly equal measure. Pearls over Shanghai demonstrates what the company is capable of when it concentrates its efforts not on a series of one-acts but on a full-length play.

If the Cockettes had been a hit in New York in 1971, maybe a revival like this wouldn’t be necessary. Maybe Gin Sling would be as well-known as Frank N. Furter. But that’s obviously not what happened, and that’s why groups like Thrillpeddlers are around — to dig up promising trash that past generations managed to dismiss.

This show wasn’t really written for New Yorkers, anyhow. It’s a musical by, for, and about San Francisco, even if it’s ostensibly set in Shanghai. And, like the Cockettes, it won’t stick around forever. Don’t miss it. Go now.

From the SF Weekly, Jan 20, 2010

In her wonderful and fascinating description of her life as a Cockette, MIDNIGHT AT THE PALACE, Pam Tent says, “Although PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI had long been germinating in the fertile mind of Link Martin, it was extremely fortuitous when the real Peking Opera played the stage at the Palace…..With this play, Link parted the bamboo curtain, his politics swept aside by his love of the mystery and intrigue of the Orient….His exotic singing sailors and witty whores, handmaidens and henchmen all took their places in the streets beside Asian aristocrats and gangland czars. The music was clever. Inspired by his love of the culture, he gave the stage as much eye candy as a Fabergé egg with high-cardboard décor loaded with vibrant images of pagodas and Chinese street-life.

“The Cockettes all shared a sense of the absurd – our shows were never known for historical accuracy. We thrived on mixing times, cultures and drag – as well as sexual perceptions – to concoct plots that defied traditions and classification. Nothing was sacred. PEARLS was a prime example.”

It is this very sense of extravagant absurdity and camp interpretation that fascinated Russell Blackwood, director of the new, revised and updated version of this wonderfully outrageous Cockette show. “Within three months of reading Pam Tent’s “MIDNIGHT AT THE PALACE: MY LIFE AS A FABULOUS COCKETTE,” I had a full on Cockette reunion at The Hypnodrome,” he said. “From there, we went to work with Fayette Hauser on Thrillpeddlers’ first Theatre of The Ridiculous Revival (Summer ’08) which led to our being asked to mount a staged concert version of PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI for New York’s HOWL Festival. It was clear then that Thrillpeddlers and The Cockettes were a good fit. Once we’d begun work on PEARLS then, there was no turning back. It burned in us. The whole essence of the piece is about thrift and skill and keeping a company that works to the very limits of their resources, talents, and joy.”

The result of this collaboration is presented through January 23, 2010 at the intimate and all too cozy Hypnodrome Theatre at 375 Tenth Street between Bryant and Division in San Francisco. This revised version of the timeless Cockettes Musical is based on the book and lyrics originally composed by Link Martin with unforgettable music by Scrumbly Koldewyn. If you have never experienced Koldewyn’s innovative and charming musical interpretations, you owe it to yourself to see this production. He is cast as Ilka, and adds his own magic touch to music that is always timeless in its appeal. Although he is not always at every performance, his spirit is very much a guiding force in its charm and infectious success.

As is Russell Blackwood, the colorful, shocking Mother Fu who sings, poses and tap dances his way through the production he adopted as his own and directed with his special and unique sense of the absurd. This version of PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI is politically incorrect in every way and far more sexually explicit than the original. The whores, Lotus Dancers, Chinese Angels and Handmaidens (all played by the same three talented performers, Kegel Kater, L. Ron Hubby (sporting a lovely goatee) and Linda Wang) are uncontained and choice. This is not a production for innocent children or prurient adults. It is filled with wiggling body parts and positions usually reserved for nighttime endeavors behind closed doors. But no gyration, no insinuation descends to the salacious. Every musical number, no matter how lewd or how uncensored, is too delightful to shock, too amusing to offend. The group numbers are powerful and delicious cupcakes of song and dance, that force you to tap your feet and clap your hands to their compelling rhythms. You would have to be deaf and mute not to laugh at the improbable lyrics that even the television censors of today would forbid. Every time Cockette Rumi Missabu (in his original role of Madame Gin Sing) takes to the stage, you get a sense of the flair and bravado that made every Cockette production a must-see experience for those lucky enough to be part of the San Francisco scene in the late sixties. “The Cockettes grew up together in the golden era of psychedelic euphoria where anything was possible,” says Pam Tent in her not-to-be missed book. “To put the matter simply: We believed we could change the world. It was an incredible journey.”

Russell Blackwood has captured just enough of that euphoric idealism and an abundance of that glitz in his present production of PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI. This was a low budget production that is as lush as and even more extravagant than any you will see on a full blown professional stage at ten times the ticket cost. Kara Emry as Lottie Wu captures the very spirit of this production when she and William McMichael sing JADED HUSSY. It is she who is responsible, with Louise Jarmilowicz and Tahara for the magnificently ornate and ridiculous costumes. Eric Tyson Wertz is the disillusioned Lili Frustrata. He plays the rejected lover with just the right touch of flamboyance and heart to win the audience. Petrushka is played by Judy Garland impersonator Connie Champagne with such style you cannot believe she isn’t the real materialistic hussy she is on stage.

The Hypnodrome Theatre is intimate enough create the feeling that each song is sung directly TO the audience. They become part of every production. They buy every boisterously rude song and love every wild, enthusiastic dance no matter how preposterous the concept, how unexpected the result. Do not miss this marvelous confection of fun and outrage, guaranteed to shock you and abuse your sensibilities just enough to question your own limitations. It’s too late to experience the real Cockettes, but thanks to Russell Blackwood, you can sample the hypnotic appeal that made them a San Francisco legend and is certain to make his Thrillpeddlers a must-follow group for as long as they dare to dazzle the Bay Area Theatre scene with their flamboyant and unforgettable productions.

By Lynn Ruth Miller for For All Events
12/11/09

In San Francisco, you need not worry about which horror movies the video store has in stock when there are half a dozen Halloween-themed plays you can see. “Shocktoberfest,” for instance, has become a Halloween tradition.

This annual blood-fest, put on by the Thrillpeddlers, is inspired by the Grand Guignol tradition of French horror plays, which means plenty of spurting blood whenever the occasion demands — and the occasion demands it frequently. As gruesome as it may sound, the show has a wicked sense of humor and an over-the-top style that will leave you laughing even as you cover your eyes.

The theater itself is part of the show. Besides traditional seats, there are Turkish lounges meant for two (think chaises draped with rugs and scattered with pillows). Or you can choose one of the interactive Shock Boxes, double seats in the back of the house that elicit intermittent screams when their occupants experience little moments of personal theater staged just for them.

This year’s double feature includes “The Phantom Limb,” a commissioned play set in a New Orleans brothel, and “The Torture Garden,” which was written in 1922 for the actual Theatre du Grand-Guignol and is being performed in English for the first time. Both provide good, gruesome fun for any aficionado of the macabre.

Los Angeles Times, October 23, 2009

How can I best describe the adults-only, non-PC, musical extravaganza “Pearls Over Shanghai?” Take our local, super-talented Grand Guignol theater company The Thrillpeddlers and mate them with the legendary drag troupe The Cockettes — it’s as if Heklina birthed Rosemary’s Baby. It’s also the most entertaining live performance you may ever see, complete with horror, murder, BDSM, nudity, pure period glamour and musical numbers that either pay homage or defile the corpse of Busby Berkeley, depending on how you squint your eyes and tilt your head.

So far, every gorgeously, garishly melodramatic show San Francisco’s Thrillpeddlers has produced makes typical theater look like child’s play. Not the horror movie “Child’s Play,” yet not unlike the horror movie with the Thrillpeddlers’ dark humor, taste for violent storylines, extravagant costumes and makeup, occasional gore and frequent sex. Top it off with San Francisco style plus outstanding talent, suddenly Beach Blanket Babylon resembles Aunt Helga’s most mothbally old, tired wig. Anything else is simply for tourists.

How else would you throw a 40th birthday bash for a twisted troupe like The Cockettes? The Thrillpeddlers polish the “Pearls.”

Performed by The Cockettes, I knew that “Pearls Over Shanghai” would be unforgettable, and lo, I cannot scrub my brain clean of the debauchery, nor can I get Michael Soldier’s fabulous turn as a murderous, singing (and well-hung) pimp out of my head. Not that I ever want to.

The Cockettes are more than just part of drag history’s great fabric. Anyone remember “Journey to the Center of Uranus?” No matter, because like Carol Ann warned us about bitchy ghosts with their panties in a bunch during the film “Poltergeist” — they’re ba-ack…. Founded in the late 1960s in North Beach, they’re notorious for performing raunchy parodies of show tunes, and the subject of at least one documentary, possibly a few obsessions, and at least one misdemeanor (yet no convictions I know of.) John Waters aptly called The Cockettes “Hippie acid-freak drag queens. … You couldn’t tell if it was men or women. It was complete sexual anarchy. Which is always a good thing.” Waters’ main starlet Divine was a member of The Cockettes for a stint, and performed a song called “The Crab At The Center of Uranus.”

But I digress. To experience a Thrillpeddlers show is nearly indescribable and yet I can’t recommend it enough. If you’re over 18, that is. Few images from the very psychedelic “Pearls Over Shanghai” are work safe enough to show on the fine pages of SFGate, though you can see a small taste above. By popular demand “Pearls” has had its run extended through November 22. If themes revolving around thugs and pimps in olden China, spiced up with money-grubbing prostitutes and “innocent” “young” “girls” being sold into sexual slavery make a musical sound fun, think about this description as only the framework for a night of eye-popping entertainment.

Simultaneously, The Thrillpeddlers have released upon audiences their horrifying and sex-drenched Shocktoberfest 2009 production, “The Torture Garden.” Since we won’t be having a Halloween party in the Castro, and the city seems like it’s going to be as quiet as an old drag queen’s fart, “The Torture Garden” is the event of the season.

Sure, you could go hang with all the bridge-and-tunnel suckers dressed in their finest “sexy costume in a bag” from the Halloween Stuporstore, gyrating until they barf their GHB-laced fruit punch all over the Exotic Erotic dance floor. With your classiest friends Danny Bonaduce and Tila Tequila. Or you could rent lesbian vampire films in quiet dignity. Or you could just leave a slew of hateful comments for me below and then masturbate into a sock alone while you cry. But you’re really better off getting your mind blown, your senses overloaded, and your date simultaneously terrified and horny by going to see “The Torture Garden.”

In what is their tenth pageant of terror and lust, The Thrillpeddlers “Torture Garden” presents two different one-act plays in the wonderful shock horror genre, whose signature style is so over the top it either makes you laugh or sit in a constant state of disbelief that anyone would really “go there.” They go there. They take you with them.

The first play in “Torture Garden” takes place in an old New Orleans whorehouse, and features all manner of unsavory characters. Called “The Phantom Limb,” it centers around an evil madam whose skillset is all about encouraging her thieving working girls while pushing snake-oil Voodoo cures on the joint’s Johns, who are Civil War vets. Sure to feature plenty of sex, hot actors, and gallons of stage blood, “The Phantom Limb” promises to make you forget all about that time you went to ExErotic and saw that guy in the Jack in the Box outfit making the most of the name “Jack.” Or not. Regardless, there’s no need to torture yourself like that when “Phantom Limb” doesn’t take away the pain, but replaces it with a wrongness that is much more entertaining.

The intermission for Thrillpeddler shows is always…interesting. Encouraging audience participation, a character or two from the previous play interacts with viewers and the adventurous are coaxed onstage for a spanking good time. When I saw “Pearls Over Shanghai” it was literal; a stunning dominatrix got no fewer than three different laughing, lovely ladies onstage for a fantastically timed dance-and-smack with her riding crop to the live accompaniment of a piano player. For Shocktoberfest 2009′s intermission, attendees can amaze their friends and loved ones by volunteering to submit to decapitation a la a full-sized replica of an 18th century guillotine. I’m sure the saucy actors then ask where they’re headed off to.

In the second act of Shocktoberfest 2009, an English translation of the 1922 French play “Le Jardine des Supplices” tells a story about a passenger ship trip on the open seas, of course gone horribly wrong, possibly due for the most part to the seriously corrupt, depraved and morbidly-obsessed characters on board. Maybe everyone’s just cranky because at that time there was still no cure for the clap. At any rate, it’s a “three-hour tour” that lives up to the Grand Guignol style, leading everyone to the Torture Garden (literally, for certain characters) and plunges the theater into hysterical darkness for the Hypnodrome’s trademark “lights out” shocking entertainment. (When I saw “Pearls” from my Shock Box seat, I screamed at least three times when darkness fell. I wasn’t the only one. You’ll have to go see — and feel — for yourself why I had such a shriekishly great time.)

So leave your political correctness and uptight morals at home this Halloween, get the kids to a sitter and create an alibi for the cops; sex-soaked Shocktoberfest 2009 is on. Don’t miss it.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/10/22/violetblue1022.DTL

Thrillpeddlers, the Bay Area’s Grand Guignol maestros, is having a very good year. Amid an ever-extending run of the gloriously notorious Cockettes’ musical Pearls over Shanghai — the hit revival now shimmying its way to New Year’s Day — opened its 10th anniversary pageant of Halloween-season splatter drama in the perennially spooky sideshow-cool of the company’s tricked-out Hypnodrome theater.

This year, the mix of terror and titillation known as Shocktoberfest features two one-act plays (separated by a little guillotine fetishizing and capped by TP’s signature haunted blackout). The Phantom Limb is a new work in the Grand Guignol style from the luridly clever pen of Thrillpeddlers stalwart Rob Keefe. Set in postbellum New Orleans, the simple but well-laid plot writhes around the enterprising Madame DuCharme (a genial Miss Sheldra), who has recently hung her shingle in the city’s red-light district and opened her den of sin (a churlish piano player flanked by assorted good-natured harlots in period frippery courtesy of actor–costume designer Kara Emry) to Civil War veterans Northern and Southern.

While Yankees may find the service a little on the harsh side, basically everybody gets a roll before they get rolled, since “Mama” (as Madame is affectionately known) flies but one all-inclusive flag over her business, and it’s a fat greenback. A little more than money enters the equation, however, with the arrival of a charming one-armed Yankee captain (the dexterous Eric Tyson Wertz) whose express satisfaction at Mama’s hokum “remedy” for phantom limb itch is such that he levels a proposal at her on the spot — one that points beyond the altar to something slightly more kinky and sinister. The payoff is a scream, and the finale a harmonious, unexpectedly resonant paean to perseverance under adversity.

The Torture Garden, meanwhile, marks another Thrillpeddlers first, being an English-language premiere of a 1922 Le Theatre du Grand Guignol classic: Pierre Chaine and Andre de Lorde’s Le Jardin des Supplices, based on an infamous novel by anarchist journalist and avant-gardist Octave Mirbeau, and adapted for Thrillpeddlers’ stage by actor and Theater Rhino founder Lanny Baugniet. Expanding on Pearls over Shanghai’s yen for oriental exoticism, Torture Garden posits a decadent Chinese world where torture reaches aesthetic perfection — in the able hands of expert torturer Ti-Mao, played by Baugniet with pure malevolent finesse — and nourishes a garden of exquisite beauty. It’s a world into which a young Frenchman (a dashing William McMichael) finds himself drawn by a captivating but decidedly unbalanced beauty named Clara Watson (a sharp and lively Adeola Role).

The torture is reportedly excruciating but the cast is pure pleasure. At the helm of both plays (and in the part of Garden’s decorous ship’s captain), artistic director Russell Blackwood is especially sharp in staging this guilty pleasure. If the pace admittedly slackens a bit midway, the story and acting compel throughout, while the company’s macabre low-rent special effects and dependable flash of flesh never fail to satisfy a certain 10-year itch.

(Via the San Francisco Bay Guardian)

For kids who were born too late to experience the fabulous freaks and drag delights of San Francisco’s world-famous underground troupe the Cockettes, your moment has come to truly sample the, ahem, wares of the groundbreaking psychedelic tranny troupe. The Cockettes may be gone, but it hasn’t been forgotten – thanks to the 2002 documentary The Cockettes and, for instance, Devendra Banhart’s recent bouts of bearded-lady dress-up (commemorated with a fashion spread in The New York Times Magazine). The group gave safe harbor to performance icons like Divine and Sylvester amid the classic show tunes, bawdy bromides, and razzle-dazzle visuals, before it splintered in 1971. So Cock-udos to SF’s Thrillpeddlers for giving young ‘uns a chance to glimpse the ensemble’s finest production, Pearls Over Shanghai, the way it was meant to be: live and lascivious, in all its lurid OTT beauty.

Pearls Over Shanghai was the jewel in the Cockettes’ crown – either a raging success or a roaring disaster depending on which source you favor. Regardless, the play’s opening night at N.Y.C.’s Anderson Theater in 1971 attracted such luminaries as John Lennon, Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, and Gore Vidal, drawn by hipster chatter to the lusty underground drag company from SF. Still, after only two more productions, Pearls languished – until Thrillpeddlers impresario Russell Blackwood, hoping to expand his underground company’s scope beyond Grand Guignol artifacts and sex farces, contacted surviving original Cockettes Scrumbly Koldewyn (who wrote Pearls’ music), Rumi Missabu, Tahara, and Bill Bowers to fluff and revive the smarter-than-it-looks, tongue-in-cheeky tribute to Hollywood’s visions of the orient.

And PC worries aside, the current fully-staged production is a genuine, drag-out joy to behold (a semi-staged, shorter version was staged at Bleecker Street Theatre in N.Y.C. last September), starting with Missabu’s witty, winking performance as Madam Gin Sling, continuing on to Connie Champagne’s turn on what might be considered the Cockettes’ most renowned tune, “Jaded Lady,” to the glitterific makeup and acid-rock-meets-Chinese-opera costumes.

As the gussied-to-the-evil-nines Mother Fu, Blackwood delivers a show-stopping tap routine with in a hysterical costume that should go down in underground theatrical history for its use of stuffed animals and a false eye. And as the Wobblin’ Robin Sisters, Adelola Role, Liza Bouterage, and Miss Sheldra kick out the three-part harmonies with manic, on-point flair. True, the Thrillpeddlers recycle a few of the spooky, nervous-chuckle-inducing effects from its Halloween show, and a few of the vocalists aren’t as strong as others. But the same-sex/similar-aesthetics marriage of the Thrillpeddlers’ reliable derring-do and the Cockettes’ rough ‘n’ ready glitter-rock aesthetics works wonders, giving you a gloriously chaotic spot to park your eyeballs for a smart, sex-positive, and subversive couple of hours.

I recently got to see a preview of the revival of the Cockette’s show “Pearls Over Shanghai.” It’s an original musical written by Cockette Scrumbly Koldewyn, a musical genius born in the wrong era. His tastes and style come directly from show tunes of the early to mid 20th century (1920′s to 1950′s). A precious gem of a show, “Pearls Over Shanghai” has not been performed since 1970. It re-opens this weekend at the Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth Street in San Francisco, and runs Friday, June 5, 2009 at 8:00pm through Saturday, June 27, 2009 at 11:00pm.

“This campy musical takes place in an imaginary “Shanghai” of the 1930s, & features a terrific cast, including sassy newcomers, hot sailor boys, & even some original members of the legendary Cockettes.” The cast is a mix of some showbiz pros and pretty amateurs, giving it that fun home-made appeal, but the pros are really pros – with some dynamic voices and strong stage presence. And for you smut hounds wondering why I am writing a theater review, you’ll be pleased to note “adult film actor” Michael Soldier has an important role in the show as a Chinese gangster, wearing a classic pinstriped Zoot Suit.

I won’t give away the surprise, but there is a campy special effect during the song about opium that was absolutely brilliant. I still can’t figure out how they did it either!

The pre-show announcements warn the audience that it takes place in an era before “political correctness” because it contains a lot of old Hollywood Charlie Chan stereotypes. It’s a period piece within a period piece. That combined with the strong sexual overtones and drug references will probably prevent it from competing with “Beach Blanket Babylon” for the tourist dollar. It should be noted that Cockettes shows happened several years before “Beach Blanket” debuted in 1975, but the inspiration is obvious.

“Beach Blanket,” created by Steve Silver, a gay man who remained closeted to the grave, took a different direction, keeping the show squeaky clean and never acknowledging it was a “drag” show. The Cockettes’ drug-fueled shows were never apologetic about drag, gender-bending, nudity, smut, or upfront gay camp. Silver’s widow (aka his beard), Jo Schuman Silver, is still making millions by keeping “Beach Blanket” in the closet after having made a Command Performance before Queen Elizabeth and even after making the Oscars’ most disastrous opening segment ever. In contrast, the Cockettes had to wait 40 years to bring their show to a 50-seat theater in a warehouse South of Market.

If you are in San Francisco this month, go see “Pearls Over Shanghai” and show your support for wacky gay camp at its most twisted.

Thrillpeddlers, well-known for blowing dust and gristle off Grand Guignol plays from early-20th-century Paris, are setting their sights a bit closer to home for this year’s Theatre of the Ridiculous Revival. Forty years ago, the Cockettes — a lurid, shimmering, acid-soaked theater troupe composed of gay men, fag hags, and babies — rose like a phoenix draped in thrift-store finery from a dilapidated movie theater in North Beach. Praise for the resulting exuberant midnight musicals spread like easy thighs across America, enticing Truman Capote and influencing everyone from David Bowie to the New York Dolls. Before the Cockettes imploded three years later, the word genderfuck had been coined to clarify original productions like Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma and Journey to the Center of Uranus, and glitter was a household word. The Cockettes’ crowning glory, Link Martin and Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn’s Pearls Over Shanghai, was loosely based on a disreputable Broadway play written by John Colton in 1926. A mock-opera set in China among opium addicts and singing sailors, Pearls Over Shanghai deals with subjects near and dear to Thrillpeddler hearts: white slavery, prostitution, gangland grudges, and supernatural interference.