THE HANGOVER REPORT – BARTCHLAND FOLLIES deviantly and stylishly revives New York’s storied downtown nightlife scene

Amanda Lepore in "Bartschland Follies" at the Club Car at the McKittrick Hotel. Photo by Felipe Santiago.

Amanda Lepore in “Bartschland Follies” at the Club Car at the McKittrick Hotel. Photo by Felipe Santiago.

This past Friday – way past my bedtime – I ventured back to the McKittrick Hotel to catch the Bartschland Follies, a subversive late night bill of naughty cabaret, vaudeville, drag, burlesque, circus arts, opera, performance art, everything in between, and beyond. In its outrageous unpredictability and resistance to being classified, the Bartschland Follies deviantly revives New York’s storied downtown nightlife scene of a bygone era, albeit now amidst the now-posh, exponentially gentrifying West Chelsea neighborhood.

As the brainchild of nightlife legend and icon Susanne Bartsch, the success of this weekly McKittrick Hotel endeavor shouldn’t come as a surprise. The evening, which only gets going well past 11pm, is hosted by the glamorous, deliciously dry Ms. Bartsch herself, along with her affable drag king sidekick Murray Hill. The lineup of performers changes from week to week, therefore encouraging repeat visits (this last trip was my second one). This past Friday, we got the likes of opera/burlesque/circus arts wunderkind Marcy Richardson (who regularly performs with Company XIV in Bushwick), the impossibly voluptuous Dirti Martini, transgender celebrity and model Amanda Lepore, and many more.

What the McKittrick does better than almost any venue in the city is to create a stylish, sexy (but safe) environment that dares you to lose your inhibitions (of course, the delicious libations help, too). It’s taken the illusory aesthetic of its longtime tenant, Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More (the hit immersive experience that filters Shakespeare’s Macbeth through noir lens) and applied it to each event they’ve subsequently produced, including the anything goes Bartchland Follies. The McKittrick creates hazy Lynchian dreamworlds in which the only thing to expect is the unexpected. With style and showmanship, it’s capitalized on the notion that life is indeed a dream, creating surreal, intoxicating visions that can only exist in such worlds.

RECOMMENDED

 

BARTSCHLAND FOLLIES
Off-Broadway, Cabaret/etc.
The Club Car
2 hours (with one intermission)
Every Friday

Categories: Cabaret

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