Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The exquisitely campy but two-dimensional THE CONFESSION OF LILY DARE is vintage Charles Busch

• By drediman
• February 28, 2020
• No Comments

Nancy Anderson and Charles Busch in Primary Stages’ production of “The Confession of Lily Dare” at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

This week, I was able to catch up with Charles Busch’s The Confession of Lily Dare, courtesy of Primary Stages. The production is playing at Off-Broadway’s classic Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village, which strikes me as the perfect venue and neighborhood to encapsulate the aesthetic and irrepressible life force that is the legendary Charles Busch (the production originally enjoyed a run at Theater for the New City, which I was unable to catch). Set in San Francisco, the “new” play tells the eventful, decades-spanning rags-to-riches-and-back-again story of one Lily Dare, whose topsy-turvy fortunes could fill a dozen lifetimes.

Those of you familiar with Mr. Busch’s previous works will be at home with the play’s modus operandum. Indeed, The Confession of Lily Dare sacrifices depth of character for pure camp – a vintage Buschian exchange – particularly the variety that draws from the (now) ludicrously melodramatic films of the 1940s and 1950s. And what exquisite camp is on display at the Cherry Lane! Every carefully researched look and gesture has been deliberately and lovingly orchestrated for maximum delight (kudos to director Carl Andress, who also staged Mr. Busch’s The Tribute Artist and The Divine Sister). Although the episodic, two-dimensional play is inconsequential and slightly overlong, I nonetheless had a delectable time, especially riding on the wave of the unbounded enthusiasm emanating from the audience.

As in many of his plays, Mr. Busch famously also stars in drag, in this instance in the title role. His performance is an inspired conglomeration of the affected self-sacrificing women of cinema, especially as portrayed by some of the era’s most adored divas (e.g., Betty Davis, Joan Crawford). Not only is Mr. Busch’s work comic genius, the performance is also notable for its high level of discipline and precision; it’s as perfectly calibrated as some of the most severe Japanese theater I’ve seen. Astonishingly, the rest of the six-strong cast is pretty much right up there at the same exceptional plain as Mr. Busch. Each one of them is masterful at their craft, and all are character actors of the highest order. Particularly spectacular is the work of Christopher Borg and Jennifer Van Dyk, who both give hilariously versatile, pitch-perfect comic performances that had me in awe and in stitches.

RECOMMENDED

THE CONFESSION OF LILY DARE
Off-Broadway, Play
Cherry Lane Theatre
2 hours, 15 minutes (with one intermission)
Through March 5