Drag artist Sasha Velour ("Smoke & Mirrors," "NightGowns," "The Big Reveal Live Show") draws on her own personal history to create "Velour: A Drag Spectacular," an epic coming-of-age story that also draws on the fierce history of drag and queer expression.
Sasha Velour says drag is everywhere and has been for a long time. She remembers seeing the 1960 Billy Wilder film "Some Like It Hot" as a kid and not yet being able to recognize it as drag.
“I didn't really understand that there was this whole culture associated with it when I saw it as a kid,” Velour said. “But just the idea that people could bend gender and create something more beautiful than what I had seen men or women ever do before really spoke to me as a kid.”
Most Hollywood films used men dressing as women for comic effect with the comedy evolving from the fact that the filmmakers and the audience saw it as somehow demeaning or ridiculous. But "Some Like It Hot" was different and that's what Velour responded to.
The story involved Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon disguising themselves as women so they can join an all-girl band and hide out from the mob. But Lemmon’s Daphne started to like being a woman and to really inhabit a female persona thus allowing the film to take sly delight in playing with gender roles and stereotypes.
In this scene from the film, Lemmon’s character marvels at the way Marilyn Monroe moves.
Now as an adult, Velour filters the film through a different lens and wants to illuminate a drag icon that audiences might not even realize had an influence on the film.
“In 'Some Like It Hot,' the drag was supervised by a very famous drag queen named Barbette, who's one of the references for some of the pieces in my show, even though her name is not really known as part of the film,” Velour explained. "But there's this authentic drag spirit to that film."
And that’s what appealed to her as a child. The second drag performance Velour remembers seeing as a child was Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz" (1939).
"Because there is a heightened, out-of-human embodiment of ideas and fantasies that is a part of drag that makes it available no matter what your gender is or what your gender performance is," Velour stated.
So I had to ask, is Mae West doing drag?
"Yes, Mae West is absolutely drag,” Velour said and again took the opportunity to highlight another forgotten drag artist. "West credited a drag queen named Bert Savoy with teaching her how to do everything and with pioneering being really vulgar on stage, which, as you know, is a part of drag tradition. Not totally my style, but one that I admire greatly."
Another part of drag tradition that West tapped into was exaggeration, and that’s what Velour saw in Hamilton’s Wicked Witch.
“Drag is really about heightening,” Velour said. “And a camp quality where you give it your full intention and you make it real, but there's nothing real or practical about it.”
Velour jettisons the practical to create something amazing for "Velour: A Drag Spectacular," which concludes its world premiere run at La Jolla Playhouse this week. The show was co-created by Velour and Moisés Kaufman. It taps into her personal story as a drag queen and into the grand history of drag. The show ramps up with each scene trying to one-up the previous one with playful and innovative use of video projection, lip sync performance, aerial work, amazing costumes and reveals of all kinds.
Details: "Velour: A Drag Spectacular" runs now through Sept. 15 at La Jolla Playhouse's Potiker Theatre, 2910 La Jolla Village Dr, La Jolla. $35 - $119.
“Our partners here at the La Jolla Playhouse built an incredible set, incredible costumes and made these houses that explode and transform, and are basically like drag queens themselves,” Velour said with enthusiasm. “It's just like when everyone puts their minds together and creates a spectacle, I feel like the audience really gets to enjoy art on every different layer.”
Audiences have been wildly enthusiastic, and by the time this story runs there may not be any tickets left for the show, and that thrills Velour.
"I think we're at an interesting time in drag's role in culture," Velour said. "For a lot of us, we're still trying to make a case that drag is a part of theater and is an art form. I feel like for La Jolla to believe that there's something in this idea, and for Tectonic Theater Project and Moisés Kaufman to be so excited about drag that they want to elevate it to this stage and reach new audiences. I took that very seriously."
The result is a show that operates with the precision timing of a Swiss watch but one wrapped in glitter and feather boas. The show is almost like sensory overload. But one thing Velour learned doing "RuPaul's Drag Race" is that it is important to keep it real and personal in order to connect with the audience. For the play, Velour shares how her mother's battle with cancer led her to decide to become a bald drag queen.
"Her experiences losing her hair because of cancer and her many treatments really illuminated how tied our ideas of beauty and femininity are to having hair," Velour explained. "And she taught me that sometimes in pushing against maybe what feels normal, you find something that feels even more true for you or is a new beauty. And so I like to carry that forward, partly to remember her, to look like my hero, but also just to give that message to other people that there's beauty to be found no matter what you got. You can make it work."
One of the great lines in the play is when Velour quotes her mom's reaction to the discomfort people revealed at her baldness: "Other people's comfort isn't our responsibility, and life is too short to be afraid or to hold yourself back from living as you need to."
Velour said she learned more from that than she ever did from any drag queen, "especially about how to be unapologetically yourself, which I think is the key to putting yourself on stage in your full glory and taking it to the next level."
Velour also noted how looking visibly different or visibly queer can politicize you and sometimes politicizes you against your will.
"You get wrapped up into these political conversations when in reality, we're making art, we're having fun, we're entertaining people," Velour said. "I think the discourse around drag, much like the discourse around trans and nonbinary people, comes from folks who have no idea what they're talking about and are actively spreading lies and misinformation. So with everything I do, I need to be conscious. I try to be, but we also have to be, about clearing up misinformation with truth. I don't ever want to hit anyone over the head, but the simple truth is so positive about drag, about being allowed to be a nonbinary person or in a community of trans people. No one is hurting their bodies or exposing people to inappropriate ideas. This is about giving people consent over their own bodies and decision making power over how they live their lives."
In creating the show, Velour knew she didn't want it to be a one-queen show because part of what she loves about drag is the community and what happens backstage. So the crew moving the props and sets around take on a role in the play.
"From the very birth of the show, I said, I want there to be some takeover, where it maybe starts as a one person show, and then we get to see the whole breadth of what real drag looks like, which is never just one person. It's always a mix of voices," Velour said. "It's a little push and pull of who's in charge. That's what I love best about this world. So cast someone from San Diego, a drag artist from Seattle, and a drag artist from San Francisco. So all West Coast drag performers. We have a San Diego drag legend named Amber St. James as part of the cast because she's helped connect us to the community and it just allowed us to feel a little bit more connected to the amazing drag that's already here in San Diego. I think that's such a key message in drag is literally every place has gay people, queer people, trans people. But also there's drag queens and drag queens everywhere you look. So if you're going to celebrate the art, you better look at your local legends and give them some love, too."
Although "Velour: A Drag Spectacular" ends this week, you can rest assured that Velour is not quite done with it.
"The drag makeover never stops,” Velour said. "We're going to try to do another run of this somewhere in the next year. And I'm a New Yorker, so I hope that we'll be able to do a run off-Broadway or on Broadway sometime in the future. I know the history of La Jolla Playhouse sending huge hits to New York is quite storied. So maybe we can be part of that lineage, too. That would be an enormous honor.”
And if you just need a Velour fix, you can always find her latest work on her website and her House of Velour YouTube channel.
