Diva Diaries wants to be two very different shows at the same time. On the one hand, it wants to be an out-and-out celebration of drag queen-ism, replete with ingenious costumes, colorful sets and brassy musical numbers. On the other it wants to be a searching exposé of drag queen life, featuring alienated families, promiscuity, unrequited love, and that most unforgiving of all processes, aging. Add an evening filled with tepid jokes and some less-than-memorable melodies, and the result is an occasionally affecting, too often boring presentation that never really comes together.
Still, there are high points in the production at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, moments when the music is suddenly thrilling or when the examination of real-life problems becomes poignantly honest. At these moments you can glimpse what Diva Diaries might have been had its creators chosen to take one road or the other, or found a way to merge the two into one. But that's not this production; this one's uneven, self-contradicting. In their present state, these diaries need revising.
The premise of the play, by Jem Jender, Andrew Kato and John Mercurio, is that we're present at a nightclub called Pandora's Box, where three of drag queens, Damsel, Randee and Cleareen, have been performing for 30 years. But tomorrow Pandora's Box is scheduled for demolition; so this is the trio's last show together, and the perfect occasion for reminiscing.
Because Diva Diaries employs two sets of three actors — one group middle-aged and (in two cases) paunchy, the other young and athletic — we're able to see many of these memories come to life, and to compare each older performer with his younger, more attractive self. We also have the chance to reflect upon the three personalities, and to see what time has done to each of them.
Young Damsel (Joshua Echevarria), for example, is always falling in love with another wealthy man, concluding that this time it's for real, and then moving on to someone else. Older Damsel (Christopher Vettel) is alone; not one of these relationships turned out to be permanent.
Young Randee (Kenney Green) is the only straight character. He wants to be married, has aspirations to be a great actor, and is only doing drag until his ship (the S.S. Stardom) comes in. Older Randee (Trent Armand Kendall) never made it, never married (women didn't like his career choice) and never stopped performing as a female.
And finally young Cleareen (David Rosetti) is secretly in love with young Damsel. But when older Cleareen (George Altman) finally admits it, older Damsel isn't interested — and admits that he never would have been. Time, in other words, has disappointed each of the three men, left them little but their friendship with one another and their love of drag.
If this somber but meaningful plotline were all that went on in Diva Diaries, the show might be a success. But there's much else, and much of it's regrettable. For example, there are the incessantly unfunny jokes (Young Damsel: "Check this out! There's a toilet, a sink and — a magical fountain!" Young Cleareen: "That's a bidet, darling." Or Young Randee: "I was the lead in the disco version of Richard III at La Mama and everyone loved me! You must have heard about it, (Disco Dick Three!?") There are some exceedingly trivial memories of younger days (Randee: "There's something I've always been dying to know. … The first night we met, my costume went missing. Is there something you want to tell me?")
And there are Mercurio's too-often bland melodies and too-often banal lyrics ("We're gonna make it/On your mark, get set and go now/Got a dream and we just know now/We're going to make our dreams come true.") The musical problems are compounded by the fact that not one of these actors has a truly outstanding singing voice (though all of them are respectably better than average), and that the occasional pop songs in the mix are almost always more interesting than the show's original melodies.
And now I have to return to that contradiction I noted earlier. Simply, there are stretches of Diva Diaries when the musical is really about nothing but glitzy costumes, shimmering sets, and men singing and dancing like shapely, glamorous women. During these segments, it seems that we're supposed to forget everything we've learned about the real struggles of the protagonists, and just exult in the glittering ostentation of their act. But of course it's not that simple. Having become apprised of their genuine, often difficult lives, we can't help but find their celebrations ironic. And I'm afraid this irony doesn't seem intended by the show's creators, who in segment after segment seem to be reaching for a coup de thétre, a stirring epiphany, a booming ovation. By the end of the evening, there's something schizophrenic about the demands made on our attention, now to the private pain, now to the public bliss. What we need is to see the connection of the two, how they're necessarily related. What we need is coherence.
One aspect of the show that definitely doesn't need improving, though, is its design. Set designer Kato (same as the writer) brings us not only the stage of Pandora's Box, but also its dressing room: three vanities in front of a wall of wigs, clothes, photos and mementos.
David C. Paulin's many costumes are usually brash and always witty; and in a show about men who perform as women, you also have to admire Bianca Alexander's makeup. Kato's direction (this guy is talented) is kinetic and at times surprising, and Joseph P. Oshry's lighting couldn't be better. Whatever its failings, this show is always executed with genuine professionalism.
And it does have one more virtue: it reminds us that individuals who, for whatever reason, have been rejected by their families, will naturally construct an alternative family to nurture and sustain them. That's what Damsel, Randee and Claireen are to one another: members of an accepting, mutually supportive clan.
So when they're not making silly jokes or singing forgettable melodies, these three characters have a message about what it is to be human.
The problem is finding it in the thicket of shtick.
Contact performing arts critic Mark E. Leib at mark.leib@weeklyplanet.com or 813-248-8888, ext. 305.
This article appears in Jul 10-16, 2003.
