|
PROVINCETOWN GUIDE
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| DIRECTORY |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Provincetown :: Wednesday, July 23rd 2008
|
|
|
|
Video: Varla Goes International
In ''Varla Jean Merman Loves a Foreign Tongue''
By Kahrin Deines
July 17th, 2007
“I have to be careful because Varla isn’t supposed to be so bright,” says Jeffery Roberson in a recent phone interview about his new show for the 2007 season, “Varla Jean Merman Loves a Foreign Tongue,” which is showing at the Post Office Cabaret Thursday through Sunday.
| Roberson says the new show came out of his own journeys abroad in the last few years and the way that he saw Americans behave. “When we travel we really expect other people to speak English automatically. It’s not very respectful.'' |
|
He was recounting a recent moment when Varla had to chide her audience for booing a woman in the audience who said she knew how to speak Spanish because of her maid. “I told them ‘You guys are as bad as the Republicans, you want to pretend it doesn’t exist’.”
Varla is pretending to be a lot of things in her new show. Pretending to be a flamenco star, a German lederhosen-wearing ukelele-playing operatic chanteuse, a Canadian who’s actually American, the lover of a falsely accused terrorist – just to name a few of the astounding variety of roles, and costumes and wigs, that Varla, a role herself, brings to the stage in her new show. But Roberson need not worry. She is still the same slightly dim, ever confident, strangely talented and incredibly voiced, yet hapless and buxom girl-woman that has charmed Provincetown audiences for the last nine years.
It’s just that now she’s gone overseas. She has, in fact, decided to assume the mantle of “good will ambassador” and has much to say and sing about Africa, Australia, Europe and the Middle East.
Ignorance about geography, the arrogant assumption that the English language is hegemonic, xenophobia about everything foreign and unfamiliar – it’s all there, but remember this is Varla, which means that international education assumes a mildly deranged, if well-intentioned quality, very much in keeping with our celebrity-driven international consciousness. Varla learns how to say “this sore is not contagious” in 27 different languages. She dons a fro and raps an operatic version of a Beyonce song to the tune of “My Favorite Things” from the Sound of Music, which she says was filmed in Australia. She even adopts kids from other countries and then kicks them out.
Roberson says the new show came out of his own journeys abroad in the last few years and the way that he saw Americans behave. “When we travel we really expect other people to speak English automatically. It’s not very respectful." He also started to notice changes in attitudes towards Americans. “When I used to go overseas, people would say ‘We like Americans but we don’t like Bush’, but after he was elected the second time they were angry. We’re responsible for who’s running our country,” says Roberson.
Varla, though, is out to change all that and maybe that’s just what we need to restore our good name – a bombshell of a drag queen who has an operatic voice and a superb sense of comedy.
Varla Jean Merman is performing at the Post Office Cabaret Thursday through Sunday at 8:45 p.m. The Post Office Cabaret is located at 303 Commercial Street.
Varla will also be performing Classical Varla on Tuesday, August 14th at 8:00 PM at the UU Meetinghouse. It's the 3rd Annual Benefit Concert for the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod.
|
|
|
|
|
:: Find Events ::
advanced search
>>
Search for music, readings, performances and more
|
|
|
|
Arts & Theater
Bars & Hang Outs
