By Michael Barbieri****Sometimes you go to a drag show and you get a fun, frivolous, occasionally vulgar evening of entertainment. When I caught Miz Cracker’s show, American Woman, at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, what I got was a show with an important message—wrapped up in a fun, frivolous, occasionally vulgar evening of entertainment.
Miz Cracker is the gorgeously outspoken creation of Maxwell Heller, a drag queen, comic actor and writer, born in Seattle, now living in Harlem, NYC. She’s best known for competing on Season 10 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and for her homemade web series, “Review with a Jew,” where she recaps episodes of “Drag Race.” She hosts the World of Wonder (WOW)’s web series “JewTorials” and is an accomplished writer, having received the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association’s Excellence in Column Writing award.
A fervent activist, she began her drag career marching in Times Square for marriage equality with her drag mother, Bob The Drag Queen. Her show at the Beechman brought out her activism once again—and this time the subject was women and the need to listen to them, believe them and most importantly, respect them.
Cracker’s message began even before the house lights had dimmed. We saw a moving slide show featuring photographs of women of all ages, ethnicities, religions and social standings. There were mothers, daughters, grandmothers, single women, working women and homemakers. The entire video was set to a lovely piece of classical music and was a perfect visual representation of the diverse, powerful, beautiful women throughout our country.
Soon after, Miz Cracker made her entrance, looking stunning in a cloud of light pink tulle, lip syncing to a “Strong Woman” mashup which began slowly, but eventually kicked into a high-energy dance tempo. The mix featured a variety of hot pop songs including Cher’s “Woman’s World” as well as spoken word commentaries on feminism, all of which allowed Cracker to command the stage as she slipped out of her tulle and revealed a form-fitting bodycon dress. The title of the show, she explained, was not in reference to herself, but rather her vision of what it’s like to be a woman in America today. and what we can do, as a society, to help the women’s movement.
First thing, she said, was that we should “respect the vagina!” This statement was illustrated by Cracker lip syncing to a video clip of Eve Ensler’s “The Flood,” from The Vagina Monologues. A quick reference to bodily fluids that smelled like sour milk gave Cracker a chance to get in a little dig at her fellow “Drag Race” contestant, Milk, which of course got a huge laugh. A clip of a hokey 1950s hygiene film about The Change! transitioned into “Part of Your World,” from The Little Mermaid, complete with Cracker’s Ariel indicating her crotch as she sang “I’ve got gadgets and gizmos aplenty, I’ve got whosits and whatsits galore!” The vagina portion of the evening concluded with a bit of a song by Lady, simply entitled “Pussy!”
Telling us that she had witnessed numerous instances of body shaming as a child, Cracker advised us that we ought to respect not just the vagina, but all of a woman’s body. She then launched into another lip sync, which began beautifully with Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful.” The medley shifted gears, though, and became, shall we say, rather butt-centric. We got snippets of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” Nikki Minaj’s “Anaconda,” Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls,” Major Lazer’s “Bubble Butt” and Khia’s “My Neck, My Back (Lick It).” At the end of the number, Cracker even did a handstand, which gave us all a view of, well, Cracker’s own butt. I wanted to say “Cracker’s crack,” but she’s far too lovely a lady to show that much!
Speaking of lovely ladies, we were treated to two guest performers next. Perle Noire is a gorgeous Black burlesque queen who also runs classes for women of all shapes and sizes, helping them to feel beautiful, empowered and sexy in their own skin. She did a sensual strip tease that recalled the days when women showed just enough to titillate, yet not appear vulgar. And though she lost a pastie in the process, her performance was stunning. We also saw Izzy Uncut, another fabulous drag queen, who gave us a deranged and hilarious lip synced treatise on the old “Smile, Honey, you’ll look SO much prettier…” nonsense to which women have been subjected for eons!
I think the true genius of American Woman lay in its crafty mix of bitchy humor and important, relevant social commentary. At one point, Cracker dedicated Avenue Q’s “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” to conservative political commentator Tomi Lahren, whom she labeled her very favorite, least favorite person. Later, however, she brought up the issue of sexual assault and the #MeToo movement, saying that the most effective way to bolster the women’s movement is to listen to women, and more importantly, to believe them! The juxtaposition of serious and silly was the spoonful of sugar that helped the medicine go down, so to speak. We never felt too bombarded by the message and we learned while still laughing and being thoroughly entertained.
There were a substantial number of women in Miz Cracker’s audience at the Beechman, and quite a few enlightened men as well, so in a sense, Cracker was preaching to the choir. But after a fabulous and rather gymnastic finale, lip syncing to “I’m Every Woman,” Cracker told us that she planned to take American Woman on tour to wherever it might be relevant…like…THE WORLD! And Goddess knows, this is a message the world needs to see!
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