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