Still Outrageous!Canadian maverick Brad Fraser talks about bringing the pioneering drag-queen cult movie to the stage Playwright and director Brad Fraser knew it would be challenging to conjure up or make visible, as a spirit, by magic arts; hence, to invent; as, to conjure up a story; to conjure up alarms s>. See also: Conjure a stage musical version of Canada's 1977 cult queer movie Outrageous! Chief among the obstacles: the preserved-in-celluloid image of Craig Russell, the legendary Canadian female impersonator female impersonator Vox populi Drag queen, see there who breathed life into the picture's starring role and became one of the decade's biggest underground stars in the process. The film's initial splash--it played in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of and San Francisco and across Europe to raves--was all about Russell, a dead-on vocal and visual mimic who could slip from Mae West to Judy Garland to Peggy Lee to Carol Channing in the blink of a false eyelash eyelash /eye·lash/ (-lash) cilium; one of the hairs growing on the edge of an eyelid. eye·lash n. 1. Any of the short hairs fringing the edge of the eyelid. Also called cilium. . He was shown off to perfection as an outcast drag queen who finds comfort in the friendship of his schizophrenic female flatmate flatmate Noun a person with whom one shares a flat Noun 1. flatmate - an associate who shares an apartment with you . Unfortunately for 21st-century audiences, Russell died of AIDS-related causes in 1990, as did Richard Benner, the movie's writer-director. Fraser solved the Russell problem by casting multiracial actor Thom Allison in the lead role. "This adds a whole new dimension to the show," says the openly gay Fraser, who's best known for his play Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love is a 1989 stage play written by Canadian playwright Brad Fraser. Set in Edmonton, Alberta, the comedy-drama follows the lives of several sexually frustrated "thirty-somethings" who try to learn the meaning of love, , which was filmed as Love and Human Remains. "This is, after all, a show about prejudice and about people who ultimately don't fit in." Fraser's musical vision is obviously working. The show has already been extended through late November at the Canadian Stage Company's Berkeley Street Theatre in Toronto. Staying true to the original, Fraser set the musical in the 1970s. "There really wasn't as much knowledge about gender issues and mental illness back then," he says. "It was all dismissed as a freak show. For me, the goal was to stop the characters from falling into easy stereotypes. Most drag queens are nelly fags--and many mentally ill people are unhappy. But it's a fine line, trying to make things real while at the same time not belittling be·lit·tle tr.v. be·lit·tled, be·lit·tling, be·lit·tles 1. To represent or speak of as contemptibly small or unimportant; disparage: a person who belittled our efforts to do the job right. or exploiting them--specially in the middle of a musical." For more on Brad Fraser and Outrageous! plus links to related Internet sites, go to www.advocate.com Hays is the associate editor of the Montreal Mirror. |
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