What a dame!The Lady in Question Is Charles Busch * Produced and directed by John Catania and Charles Ignacio * Two Lions "He's about so much more than drag," we tend to say about a male star who wows us while wearing a dress. That's not to belittle 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. the rest of our sisters in pumps. But donning a skirt is not the same as making art once you're in it. So let's start here: The brilliant Charles Busch is about so much more than drag. An astute comic performer, Busch is also a first-class writer with an unerring un·err·ing adj. Committing no mistakes; consistently accurate. un·err  ing·ly adv. feel for that mix of true emotion and unintentional hilarity that defined the big "women's pictures" of the '30s, '40s, and '50s. With his wistful wist·ful adj. 1. Full of wishful yearning. 2. Pensively sad; melancholy. [From obsolete wistly, intently. , silent-movie face, he's his own perfect leading lady. Busch has always joked that he wrote this stuff primarily to get himself onstage. Like a lot of us, he had been told as a student that he was too gay, too girly girl·y adj. Variant of girlie. , too different to succeed. How sad it would have been if he'd listened. Instead--with the help of a fabulously supportive aunt--he made his own way, not unlike the tough, shady ladies he loves to play. All this comes home when you see The Lady in Question Is Charles Busch, the new documentary feature codirected by in the Life veterans John Catania and Charles Ignacio, under the aegis of Broadway megaproducer Daryl Roth. It's a rich entertainment comprising Busch's on-camera comments; interviews with friends, family, and collaborators: and hilarious footage both old and new. Busch got his start 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 City's '80s downtown arts scene when he assembled a troupe of friends to perform late-night sketches at the Limbo Lounge, a rank club in the East Village. They weren't serious; some weren't even actors. Whatever. They were a smash. By the time AIDS and battle fatigue bat·tle fatigue or bat·tle neurosis n. See combat fatigue. battle fatigue Posttraumatic stress disorder, see there shut it down, Theatre-in-Limbo had killed in such Busch extravaganzas as Theodora, She-Bitch of Byzantium; Psycho Psycho Hitchcock’s classic horror film. [Am. Cinema: NCE, 1249] See : Horror Beach Party; Vampire Lesbians of Sodom; The Lady in Question; and Red Scare Throughout much of the twentieth century, the United States worried about Communist activities within its borders. This concern led to sweeping federal action against Aliens and citizens alike during periods known today as Red scares. on Sunset. Since then, Busch has expanded his boundaries again and again. He wrote a novel, Whores of Lost Atlantis, published in 1993 and reissued last year, and penned a hit Broadway play, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, which opened in 2000. He played a scary convict in HBO's Oz. He won the Sundance Film Festival's 2003 Best Performance award as leading lady of the film adaptation of his play Die, Mommie, Die! (Busch has kept writing age-appropriate parts for his female alter egos.) At the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, he's premiering A Very Serious Person, and this time he not only stars in the film and cowrote the screenplay but also directed. It's dizzying. Actually, it's dazzling. Charles Busch may seem like "the lady in question," but really he's the guy with the answers.--Anne Stockwell |
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