strange fruit
by Douglas Messerli
Joey Arias
Billie Holiday Centennial Concert /
Los Angeles, Redcat (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theate
at Disney Hall / the performance I saw was on November 19,
2015
After the lavish Basil Twist-influenced extravaganza, Arias with a Twist, which I saw at Redcat in 2009, almost seven years ago to the very day (see My Year 2010), I was delighted to be able to catch a performance of the famous drag artist “channeling”--as many critics have described it--the great jazz singer Billie Holiday.
I
never saw Billie Holiday perform, but listening to her songs on recordings I
find Arias’ musical interpretations a bit spooky in their faithfulness. But
then, as admirers of the black singer have long observed, Holiday herself
appeared often as an artist who channeled other
singing legends in her work; even in Arias’ renditions one can hear moments of the raw energy of
Bessie Smith, the sexual shadings of Eartha Kit, the scat jubilations of Ella
Fitzgerald, and even, upon rare occasion, the carefully enunciated announcements
of spiritual joy that reminds one of Ethel Waters.
That all of these sounds come out of the
mouth of a 66 year-old gay man dressed in a slinky dark purple gown who’s
pinned a large camellia to his hairdo is truly “incredible”—made credible
perhaps by the fact that before our very eyes Arias constantly slips in and out
of his persona, allowing us to magically watch him, moment to moment, drape
himself in the character and voice of Holiday, while enjoying and even teasing
us about our wonderment for his transformations. Unlike so many “drag queens”
who spend their time attempting to “imitate” their beloved goddesses, Arias
enjoys teasing, challenging, and even slightly mocking his heroine, while still
lovingly representing her art.
We can
never be sure that in his constant intake of wine throughout his performance,
it is Arias who needs the alcoholic uplift or the subject he is portraying; are
his high soprano rifts a kind of mockery of the original or a true
representation of Holiday’s girlish high spirits; are the performer’s several descents
into pure gibberish a product of the alcohol or a tribute to Holiday’s own inexpressible
comments of suffering and hurt. Certainly, we perceive in a work such as “Strange
Fruit” that the guttural explosions of words such as “blood,” “crop,” and “flesh”
emanate from deep horror and pain. “You’ve Changed” is filled with barks of
sorrow and disappointment.
Do Arias’ obviously bawdy plays to his
large gay audiences leave his “character” momentarily in frieze, or might
Holiday herself have gone there to entertain true admirers such as Frank O’Hara.
But that is just where Arias is so gifted: in his ability to remain Joey Arias
while simultaneously convincingly belting out Holiday favorites such as “God
Bless the Child,” “Easy Living,” “All of Me,” “Lady Sings the Blues,” and, in
encore, the amazing “Violets for Your Fur,” all so wonderfully accompanied by
the quintet of Matt Ray (on piano), David Pitch (acoustic bass), Robert Perkins
(on drums), Maiani da Silva (violin), and Isaiah Gage (cello).
Only a consummate performer like Arias
can get away with performing someone who is so beloved and reverently treated
by performers like Audra McDonald, who in Lady
Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, credibly recreated the last days of the jazz singer. While McDonald, a great
singer in her own right, totally immerses herself in the icon, we readily
forgive Arias’ audacious transgressions because—while nonetheless convincing us
of his musical and theatrical convictions in performing Holiday—he doesn’t let
us lose sight for a moment of the wonderment of his gay-male transfiguration.
McDonald’s performance is simply another kind of realism, while Arias’ is what
theater is truly about. Oscar Wilde would surely have applauded Arias’ as
wildly as did the audience at Redcat on opening night. For Arias shows us a
reality that isn’t for a moment entirely believable, but takes us closer to the
truth for all that.
Los Angeles, November 20, 2015
