On July 3, at the Ice Palace, Dallas Dubois and her no-less-talented and energetic friends Holly Dae, Bootsie LeFaris, and Pixie Aventura gave us their skewered view of the Great White Way in a show they called “Twisted Broadway.” DJ Richard Kennedy provided music, lights, and sound for this eve of Independence Day extravaganza.
The girls, all glittery, opened with the Cagelles’ “We Are What We Are” from “La Cage aux Folles.” Dallas’ blockbuster opening solo considered what it takes to get to “The Big Time” and then she punctuated—punctured?—a touching “Home,” from “The Wiz,” with truly vile, Tourette syndrome-type “uncontrollable outbursts.” In the first act finale of “Wicked,” “I hope you’re happy … Defying Gravity,” with Bootsie as Elphaba and Holly as Galinda, a plunger substituted for the broom and black trash bags made up the cape. Pixie gave us some “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” complete with splits.
A deliberately disheveled Busted offered “Rainbow High,” from “Evita,” and “The Movie in My Mind,” from “Miss Saigon,” in her own inimitable style. Dallas, as Miss Mazeppa, with a rude use for her horn; Bootsie, as a lit-up Electra; and Pixie as a rainbow-caped Tessie Tura, collaborated on a vivid “Gotta Get a Gimmick,” from “Gypsy.” Paying tribute (?) to Disney, Holly, a “Little Mermaid” slithering across the stage, made Ariel’s wish, not to be “Part of That World,” but to have human genitalia, and Bootsie and company did a number from “The Lion King”—Holly’s giraffe-with-a-walker merits special mention. “America,” from “West Side Story,” with Dallas and Pixie whirling and twirling in bright red, was followed by suggestions of musicals we may never want to see on Broadway, including “Step Mom,” “Boys Don’t Cry” starring Chaz Bono, “Philadelphia, the Musical,” and “Schindler’s List”—cue “Disco Inferno”—starring Sandra Bernhard.
Bootsie’s exuberant “Music and the Mirror,” from “A Chorus Line,” was apparently fueled by some sort of powdery substance. Dallas made a wildly tipsy Miss Hannigan, ruefully surrounded by “Little Girls,” including Busted as a cigarette-smoking Annie. Bootsie, Pixie, and Holly responded by scrubbing the floor and dancing extravagantly, as they lamented the “Hard Knock Life” they lead.
Catch Dallas, Holly, Bootsie, and Pixie in their “Distorted Disnee” show at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, on 42nd Street between Ninth and 10th Avenues, in Manhattan, on Fridays in July and August at 10 p.m.