Author Archives: davidleesimmons

“Be a New Orleanian” remount helps Jim Fitzmorris put a fuzzy idea in sharper focus

Posted on by under theater

 

Jim Fitzmorris in “Be a New Orleanian”

INFO:
“Be New Orleanian: A Swearing In Ceremony” (presented by Dirty Coast)
Written and performed by Jim Fitzmorris, directed by Mike Harkins
8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat., 6 p.m. Sun., through March 6
The Theatre at St. Claude, 2240 St. Claude Ave.
Tickets $20; call (504) 638-6326 or visit the website

NOTE: The final performance is 6 p.m. Sunday, March 6.

It’s only fitting that Jim Fitzmorris’ brilliant “Be a New Orleanian” one-man show now comes in booklet form, courtesy Dirty Coast. After all, Fitzmorris’ treatise on what makes one a citizen of the Big Easy — especially in the post-Katrina world of “New New Orleans” — is an instructional manual as much as it is a manifesto.

But it’s also because of Fitzmorris himself. Arguably the city’s most important playwright expounding on the city itself, Fitzmorris as both writer and performer comes at his audience with machine-gun ferocity, spitting out paragraphs of parables. In verbal form, at times they feel almost free of punctuation. He knows how to pack a lot of insight, humor and reflection in his one-hour show currently enjoying a remount at his new Theatre at St. Claude space (the old Marigny Theatre) behind the AllWays Lounge on St. Claude Avenue.

He premiered the piece in time for the 10-year anniversary of Katrina last August, which was fitting for many and garnered great reviews from NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune’s Ted Mahne and Gambit’s Tyler Gillespie. As someone who’d already burned out of both reading and creating 10th anniversary stories (and already filled with anxieties that a couple weeks later came home to roost), I’d consciously avoided anything with a whiff of the flood, and while I felt a twinge of regret at the time, I’d argue that now is an even better time to see this show. The show crystallizes every conflicting emotion about living in New Orleans … and, in my case, returning to New Orleans, for better and worse.

New Orleans now enters its even more uncertain post-post-Katrina period, one in which the recovery money and tax incentives are starting to dwindle, the media’s packed up its vans, and legacy of a Bobby Jindal governorship suggests a looming recession. If you want stormy weather, the city might be heading into it once again, and so Fitzmorris’ perspective is needed more than ever.

As other reviewers have astutely pointed out, Fitzmorris, despite possessing a razor-sharp wit, often has a bark worse than his bite. He can be pointed in his criticism and blunt in his tone, but “Be a New Orleanian” (subtitled “A Swearing In Ceremony”) is as much a love letter to his hometown as it is a cautionary to those who think they “get” the city but don’t, and maybe never will. Maybe that’s because Fitzmorris, like many, have tired of the vitriol aimed at the carpetbaggers and gentrifiers and going-native types who have flooded the city since the flood. In a city filled with so much love, why hate?

It’s cleverly structured around six basic tips, starting with the most timely in which he clearly distinguishes between the actual New Orleans and “N’Awlins,” with all its post-K perils, and divided into two suburbs: “Sadsaxophoneville” and “Spookyvoodooland.” The former suburb is what hit me right in the gut and the funny bone:

This is the place that provides generic N’Awlins background music for NPR. It is a particular favorite for the sort of people who consider Ira Glass, Terry Gross and Garrison Keillor as their holy trinity. When you step into Sadsaxophoneland, you will see an old saxophone player under a street lamp playing a soulful tune and occasionally stopping to say even more soulful things like … ‘Once you get inside N’Awlins, N’Awlins gets inside of you.”

Then there’s Spookyvoodland, which is just as rife with cliché:

Spookyvoodland has Congo Drums, and Skeleton Keys, and Angel Hearts, and moon glowed cities of the dead, and endless nights, and fortune tellers, and psychics whose gifts have driven them so mad they choose to help honeymooners from Scranton, Pennsylvania rather than play the stock market … Spookyvoodooland is filled with anyone who has ever sharpened their teeth and gone looking for a front row seat for the 15-round battle between the top-hatted Papa Laba and The Lou Garou in a loser-leave-town match.”

For sure, “Be a New Orleanian” suggests at times a New Orleans culture — however defined — under siege, and some of Fitzmorris’ anecdotes ring true to the teller. He delivers them on a spare stage, often getting up from behind his table (surrounded by New Orleans trinkets and iconography) to tell his stories. In pointing out the “New Orleans Linger,” he conjures the story of a Dorignac’s cashier who takes her sweet time ringing up two polar-opposite customers. One’s an aging, sweet-natured local who’s happier to chat than get through the line, and the one (behind her) is an impatient hipster rolling his eyes at the pair’s extended exchange. The cashier sizes up the temperament of both, and takes her sweet time checking out both customers — one out of love, the other out of spite.

“(I)f you take the linger out of New Orleans, you take its smile along with it,” he says. “And you turn us into a version of Atlanta with better food and more mosquitos.”

As someone who lived for seven years in Atlanta after moving from New Orleans, only to return a couple years ago, I felt that familiar twinge of defensiveness about living in the Crescent City’s favorite rival city and punching bag. The Atlanta I came to know and ultimately appreciate is a little better than perceived from a distance, but, really, its only crime was not being New Orleans. Whether driving around the city or interviewing New Orleans authors I’d coaxed to the Decatur Book Festival, I’d kept near me that sliver of a bumper sticker that read, “Be a New Orleanian. Wherever You Are.” For seven years, I knew what it means to miss New Orleans.

But the return to the city, despite years of visits back with friends and family and familiar and new spots, felt like a crash landing and at times felt like a strange new world all over again. I wondered, for a second time, if I had any right to call myself a New Orleanian. It reminded me of a commentary I’d penned for Gambit (Weekly, thank you) when I was the managing editor after Katrina, titled “So Long … For Now.” Among other things, I pondered what effect staying to help rebuild the city would affect us as others left, not realizing at the time I would fit in both categories:

I’ve often thought about how, because of New Orleans’ sometimes provincial nature — where natives are polite but sometimes leery of transplants — non-natives have to qualify for special pins to mark the time they’ve put in here. You know, like Alcoholics Anonymous members. Now, I fear another caste system is already developing. Those who stayed through the storms will be the proudest, followed by those who returned within days, then within weeks, and then months. And we will all revel in our pride for being the brave frontier folk who stayed to fight the good fight, to rebuild the city. And then, when our friends return, when the city is in better shape — when the stink blows away, the debris clears up, the services return to normal, even homes become inhabitable — we’ll resent them.”

But in “Be a New Orleanian,” Fitzmorris takes complex emotions like these and remains gleefully positive. His basic point: If you come here and try to make New Orleans a better place without taking away that which makes it unique, you will fit in just fine.

The show ends with the suggested swearing-in ceremony. I’d planned not to participate, partly out of a critic’s objectivity, partly out of desire not to seem presumptuous or pretentious. But as everybody else in the audience rose, I couldn’t help but join in the fun.

Now it’s official. The bumper sticker is now a book, and a way of life. Thanks, Jim.

Clay Mazing on Saturday’s Emergency Circus fundraiser for Syrian refugee trip

Posted on by under circus

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

New Orleans circus performer Clay Mazing took his Emergency Circus troupe to the heart of the Syrian refugee crisis this past December and, for a few moments, made the lives of thousands of people a little brighter.

Now he wants to go back, and he needs a little help from his friends. His  “Emergency Circus Strikes Back” fundraiser on Saturday night (Feb. 13) at the Castillo Blanco Art Studios on St. Claude Avenue (home of the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus) seeks to raise funds for a springtime return to Europe where he hopes to bring a troupe of fellow performers to continue their work. That work began with a partnership through Clowns Without Borders, and the work never ends.

On Saturday night, the fun begins at 8 p.m. with an art-crawl led by Afro-Brazilian troupe BateBunda starting at Antenna Gallery (3718 St. Claude Ave.) and will pass through the traditional second-Saturday art crawl, down the boulevard and to the Castille Blanco for a big  dance party, art auction, and circus show featuring local and touring circus artists (including those from Cirque Copine and the recent “Vaude D’Gras” show at Happyland Theater.

Clay Mazing took a moment to explain his work and the show. Read more about New Orleans’ thriving circus-arts scene here.

What was the most rewarding aspect of the first trip that has inspired you to come back for a second tour of duty, so to speak?

Well, honestly when I first arrived I didn’t know how my clowning would be received by these people going through such unimaginable hardships. I mean, these people were fleeing war, walking for miles, spending their life’s savings, and losing loved ones. I didn’t know how they would feel about a foolish American clown showing up to make funny faces and play music. But as soon as I did the first show, as soon as I made that first smile, I realized how imperatively important this work was not only for the refugee children but for their parents, the other aid workers, my own soul, and for all my friends, family, and strangers back home who needed to know the hearts of these struggling humble folks.

What if any feedback did you get from relief or aid workers about your work? Did you have much interaction with “official”-type people who were dealing with this crisis?

The aid workers were always pleased to see us. It’s very hard on them to work with this constant surge of refugees who are mostly only there for a day or two while the aid workers have been dealing with death and hardship for months. It’s a magical feeling when you can get Syrian refugees, UNICEF workers from Norway, and Greek border police all laughing at the same pray fall. It proves we are all connected at the deepest level.

Let’s talk about your needs with the fundraiser. What kind of budget are you looking at for this trip? What are the cost breakdowns, if you can do so generally? What’s the plan and how much will it cost to go back again?

Our plan is to bring three circus performers along the entire refugee road from the Syrian border with Turkey to refugee camps in the Netherlands. We will be documenting the journey because I think it’s important for people to know what compels these refugees to make this journey, to hear their stories, and to realize how close we all are. Of course it costs a lot to do such an epic journey. Luckily I was offered a gig as a keynote speaker for a conference in Denmark on “play in difficult situations,” so they’ll be paying for my ticket but I’ll still need at least $5,000 for travel, room and board to bring three circus performers the whole way.

I know we won’t be able to raise all the money needed with this one fundraiser but I think part of the importance of this project is to raise awareness, especially after hearing some of the xenophobic rhetoric recently spread by some of our political leaders. I experienced first-hand how kind, sweet, funny and loving these excellent souls are, and I want to share that. I want to show the ways in which we are the same. I want to show that we all laugh in the same language. That’s why I’ll be sharing stories, videos, and pictures from my experiences between acts at the show.

What’s the name of the conference and which three other performers are joining you? And what’s the time frame of the trip?

The trip will go from April 13 until May 25. We’ll be joined by New Orleans performer Moniek de Lieu, who went on the trip last fall and has spent a lot of time here in New Orleans. We’ll bring other European-based artists as well and link up with local musicians and clowns in each area we visit. We’ve got great connections in Athens, Germany, and many places along the way. I’m really excited to be working with such amazing talent for this extravaganza. We’ve got BateBunda marching through second Saturday’s art galleries, with jugglers and circus artists reveling the whole way. The show includes some of the most famous artists currently pushing the envelope of bringing a new consciousness of love to American society, like “Americas Got Talent’s” Special Head; Joey Cook, the New Orleanian who just killed it on “American Idol”; and Matthew Silver, the incredibly viral Internet wild man — not to mention local favorites Nick Williams (Guglielmo), Chatty the Mime, Sam Aquatic, and of course Clay Mazing.

Orpheuscapade: Nathan Fillion, Harry Connick Jr., Harry Shearer, Bianca Del Rio and more (photos)

Posted on by under mardi gras

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The massive Orpheuscapade party inside the Ernest N. Morial Convention center served in typical fashion to offer a high-energy punctuation mark to the Krewe of Orpheus’ parade, with floats speaking to the theme, “The Wizard’s Bestiary,” and lots of celebrities and music for Lundi Gras (Monday, Feb. 8).

“Castle” star Nathan Fillion rolled inside the convention center as celebrity monarch, joined by humorist Harry Shearer (with wife/singer Judith Owen in a huge blue wig) and a ton of marching bands and lovely floats. But it was the presence of krewe co-founder Harry Connick Jr. that set the night on fire; the legendary musician rode in the parade and then hopped off to deliver a rousing set that eclipsed all acts that came before — including the cover band the Party Crashers and Chevy Metal.

Before he performed, Connick Jr. gave thanks to co-founder Sonny Borey, who earlier in the afternoon at a press conference that his mother had passed away that morning. Borey soldiered on, serving as a humble host in the convention center at his captain’s table along with artistic director Derek Franklin.

With “Cupid’s Cabaret,” Trixie Minx goes beyond burlesque for Valentine’s Day

Posted on by under burlesque

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

If quantity was the watchword for burlesque in 2015, maybe the watchword for 2016 is quality. Because of the massive influx of performers moving to New Orleans over the past couple years, and the increased number of shows, there’s a sense that the scene might have become a bit saturated.

There might be only one way to go, then: up. That’s up, as in quality; up, as in production value; up, as in a sense of scale; and up, as in a platform to showcase the talent here.

That’s why it’s so fun watching Trixie Minx discuss her latest venture, “Cupid’s Cabaret,” a grand affair set for Sunday (Feb. 14) — Valentine’s Day — on the grandest stage since the burlesque renaissance, the Orpheum Theater. Minx is alternately excited and a bit wary as she explains her vision for the show over coffee inside the Roosevelt Hotel, opposite the Orpheum’s general manager, Kristin Shannon. Burlesque is too small a word to describe what’s on tap, she cautions.

“We want this event to be more than a show but an experience of what it was like to be in the Orpheum back then,” Minx said in a recent post with vintage Orpheum photos that reminded readers of the venue’s vaudeville roots. “An interactive vaudeville presentation on a Vegas-size level … with a modern take.”

That’s Minx, always harkening to the more classic style of burlesque but always with an eye toward the present — most often seen in her monthly Fleur de Tease shows at One Eyed Jacks. (Not to confuse anyone, but this month’s show, held the night before on Saturday, naturally will have a Valentine’s theme.) So call it what you will: burlesque, vaudeville, cabaret or variety show, but “Cupid’s Cabaret” represents a major step up and forward for the producers and performers in the scene in 2016.

The cast alone is worth the price of admission: Trixie Minx, Roxie le Rouge and Madame Mystere — all regulars in the “Fleur de Tease” show — but also Portland’s Angelique de Vil performing a number. But then comes tons of variety, including music from New Orleans’ own singer-songwriter Sasha Masakowski (flown in from New York City), swing dancer Bobby Bonsey, contortionist Sam Aquatic, and the New York-based aerial duo, Brian Ferree & Crista Marie Westley. New Orleans drag/cabaret performer Vinsantos also is on tap.

It will all be set in a dinner-theater atmosphere, which will allow the Orpheum to take advantage of its ability to raise its stage to accommodate dining lovers in the front, with sparkling wine flowing from bottles the moment guests arrive at the door. While this area is certainly for the lovers in the house, the upstairs balcony (at cheaper prices) will provide a fun atmosphere for single men and women, without necessarily the pressure of trying to impress a date but instead take in the entertainment.

“For the guests to experience it, we want the Orpheum and the stage of the Orpheum to allow and provide access to folks who wouldn’t ordinarily buy tickets to a show like this, like maybe even “Fleur de Tease,” said Shannon. “When you come inside a place like the Orpheum, you get to see a show that’s an elevated type of vaudeville or burlesque.”

For Trixie Minx, “Cupid’s Cabaret” represents a logical progression in a career that has taken her outside of New Orleans for bigger ventures, bigger stages and bigger audiences. Her guest performers represent a list of friends she’s made elsewhere, whether it’s from her regular trips to Atlantic City (most notably for this past December’s “The Burlesque Show” at the Borgata Casino Hotel & Spa); the Ink-N-Iron Festival in Long Beach, Calif.; or the “Fantasy” show she produces for Couples Cruise.

Each of these shows, she says, have inspired her to try to take her work to another level, which includes a larger budget, more performers and a larger stage.

“I started ‘Fleur de Tease’ 10 years ago because from the first moment I was introduced to burlesque, I liked it but I wanted more,” she said. “That’s why ‘Fleur de Tease’ is New Orleans’ premier vaudeville revue. It’s more than burlesque. Burlesque is a beautiful art form, but I wanted a show. I wanted something big.

“My inspiration was the Moulin Rouge, the Crazy Horse and the Lido in Paris,” she continued. “I saw all of them 2005. Those shows are what inspired me. ‘Fleur de Tease’ workw with a humble budget, and a great cast. This is a chance to work my creative muscles.

“I have so many ideas!”

She’s executing only the ideas that work for her creatively, and not just to be a crowd-pleaser or dumb down the production value, she said.

“I’ve been pushed a lot times to do things that might cheapen a performance because it’ll draw more people,” she said. “They’ll say, ‘You should go a little raunchier, and what’s hot in the moment.’ I always keep to a performance that’s classic, that’s got comedy, that’s got that vaudeville spirit. I love that we can expand on that.

“My shows, I never want to bring down the quality to bring in more people.”

“Cupid’s Cabaret” is another indicator of burlesque shows going bigger and possibly expanding its audience. Last year saw more attempts to do this, including Bella Blue’s weekly “Risq” show at Harrah’s New Orleans Casino. (That show currently is on hiatus but might return soon.) After recently presenting her “Touché” show at the Joy Theater, she announced the formation of the Foxglove Revue, a troupe that will include such in-demand performers as Darling Darla James, Charlotte Treuse, Queenie O’Hart, Stevie Poundcake, Madonnathan, Angie Z, Cherry Bombshell, Miss Monarch M, Cherry Brown and The Lady Lucerne.

Elsewhere, Blu Reine announced this past December that she will expand her quarterly production, “The Roux: A Spicy Brown Burlesque Show,” into a full-blown festival Sept. 16-18 — which will showcase some of the nation’s most in-demand performers of color.

It’s productions like these that offer everyone a chance to up their game, including longtime “Fleur de Tease” collaborator and Big Deal Burlesque producer Roxie le Rouge.

“I think anytime a performer has the opportunity to perform their art form in a beautiful theater such as the Orpheum, it feels like an accomplishment,” she said. “I always feel a sense of relief when I can do an act as intended without limitations that come along with performing at smaller venues. I mean I love performing at hole-in-the wall dive bars, metal clubs, etc. But, it is a pretty great feeling to be on a big stage. In my head I’m saying, ‘Look at all this room I have to dance!'”

For Trixie Minx, expanding the form, and the audience, creates so many new opportunities in a city too often associated with the past. The Orpheum Theater, as I noted in a Biz New Orleans profile, is symbolic of a return of several historic New Orleans theaters, but it wants to celebrate both the past and the future for these types of productions.

“I honestly think that burlesque is an evolutionary art form,” Minx said. “To me, the art of striptease is not new. It’s continuously evolving. Each year it has upped. I feel people might be a little more excited about it right now, like as a buzzword. What I really like about this year and specifically working with the Orpheum, whatever you love, you’re going to see a show because you love it.

“Hope this will open the minds of someone who might not see a vaudeville show. It might open eyes and perspective to a whole new world, which is incredible.”

Snapshots from Mardi Gras on Claiborne

Posted on by under mardi gras

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Back in the day, Claiborne Avenue along the Treme neighborhood was a constant hive of activity, until city leaders OK’d a routing of a stretch of I-1o directly over that area, casting a literal shadow over a unique culture and commerce for the African-American community.

Treme in particular and black New Orleans never fully recovered from that decision, but Mardi Gras day represents a kind of reclaiming of that territory, with music, vendors, artisans, families, Zulu members, and Mardi Gras Indians flooding Claiborne Avenue — both under the bridge and off to the side, spilling all the way down Basin Street. It’s as magical a scene as anything in the French Quarter, with DJs and performers blasting music and gumbo boiling in pots and offered at $6 a bowl.

(One vendor offered a free sampling of cracklin’ just to be nice.) Photographers offered to take photos with street-themed backgrounds awash in airbrush spray paint at $5 a snap.

There is an official “Mardi Gras Under the Bridge” event, but really, it’s just one massive street party.

Here are a few snapshots from that scene.

Snapshots from Zulu parade on Orleans Avenue (photos)

Posted on by under mardi gras

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Watching the Zulu parade on Orleans Avenue has become a ritual, of sorts, setting up near Dooky Chase’s restaurant at the corner of Miro and enjoying an amazing street and neighborhood scene. Even though I’d parked my car two blocks away, I must have seen four neighbors smoking meats on the way up to the parade route.

Treme residents, vendors, tourists and even the occasional celebrity can be spotted along the route, and, before the parade proceeds, the king and queen each receive a toast from the Chase family perched on a grandstand outside the restaurant. When it’s all over, plenty of people head back in the other direction for Claiborne Avenue and an even more impressive street scene that includes “Mardi Gras Under the Bridge.” I’ll have snapshots from that in a separate post.

Check out my feature on Zulu King Jay Banks and his wife, Artelia, in the New Orleans Advocate, as well as a look inside their lovely Uptown home.

At home with Zulu King Jay Banks for Mardi Gras

Posted on by under mardi gras

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Profiling Zulu King Jay Banks and his wife, Artelia, for the New Orleans Advocate at their Uptown home was one of the highlights of the Carnival season — not just because it’s a chance to meet royalty, but because of the dedication to serve that fills their everyday lives:

If we can use this to benefit somebody, it’s worth it,” said the 55-year-old Banks, director of the Dryades YMCA School of Commerce. “It’s not about us. It all comes back to that basic idea of wanting to help people.”

Both Bankses make service and helping others a part of both their professional and personal lives. That includes his work with Zulu and New Orleans politics — totems of which permeate their modest residence. Keepsakes from Zulu balls and the Democratic National Convention share space on the walls, so I thought you might get a kick out of those images almost as much as the story itself.

 

Nathan Fillion and other celebs prepare for Orpheus parade

Posted on by under mardi gras

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

“Castle” star Nathan Fillion, the celebrity monarch for the Krewe of Orpheus, joined co-founders Sonny Borey and Harry Connick Jr. and other celebrities for a press conference Monday (Feb. 8) for other krewe members at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center before loading up for the parade.

Fillion, who confessed this was his first trip to New Orleans, was joined at the event by Krista Allen, star of the CW show “Significant Mother”; humorist and New Orleans resident Harry Shearer; and members of the Orpheuscapade headliner Chevy Metal, a 1970s cover band led by Foo Fighter Taylor Hawkins. (Mayor Mitch Landrieu also spoke briefly.)

Hawkins, the Foo Fighters’ drummer, bragged about Chevy Metal being “the most overpriced wedding band in the world,” but promised a good show. (Even if he goofed on the name of Shearer’s “Spinal Tap” character, Nigel Tufnel. He challenged Connick Jr. to join him onstage for a jam at the Orpheuscapade, which is held at the Convention Center after the parade.

Music also will be provided by the Party Crashers and No Limits. New Orleans native and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” season six winner Bianca Del Rio will serve as co-emcee with Robert Pavlovich. The event took on a somber tone when Borey noted that his mother had passed away earlier in the morning.

“Vaude D’Gras” brings the Big Top to Bywater (review)

Posted on by under circus

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

(UPDATE: This post now includes an expanded look at the show, which concludes its run Monday (Feb. 8) night. For show details, click here.)

LadyBEAST’s revamping of the Mardi Gras-timed circus show, “Vaude D’Gras,” took over the old Bywater Happyland Theater house on Sunday (Feb. 7) with a rousing ensemble performance that included acts by burlesque performer GoGo McGregor, opera-singing clown Guglielmo, knife-thrower Madame Daggers, whip-cracking/gun-slinging Clay Mazing, aerialist Sarah Stardust, and LadyBEAST herself.

They all performed to the music of the Vaude D’Gras Band, including Sarah Jacques.

Building on the strength of their previous two “Cirque du Gras” shows, also timed for Carnival, this troupe has an easy chemistry that’s only buttressed by the addition of popular New Orleans burlesque and sideshow performer GoGo McGregor. (She also works with LadyBEAST and Liza Rose on what will be a quarterly Cirque Copine show at One Eyed Jacks, which debuted in January.)

While last year’s theme had a kind of post-apocalyptic vibe, this year’s show was sort of pre-apocalyptic — the notion being that vaudeville was being threatened by increasingly modern forms of entertainment (movies, TV, the Internet), and it’s up to the troupe to up its game to keep the customers coming on in. On this chilly Sunday night, the disheveled Happyland Theater, once a home for vaudeville and then movies in Bywater, seemed an apt setting. Almost the entire interior was a study in patchwork coverage, from the flooring to the side walls to the shutters that lined the back wall of the unused balcony. Artisans pushed trinkets, including vintage hats, and most of the modest-size audience showed up in period attire. With no heat available, it indeed felt like the lights were about to go out on vaudeville, but for the efforts of this rag-tag troupe. (If only the one woman sitting near me, with her vintage coat and floral headdress, could have gotten more into the spirit of the proceedings and not texted on her phone half the time.)

Guglielmo, as he’s done in the past, proves a genial emcee, growling and barking his lines. He and Clay Mazing make for a fun comedic duo, especially in the introduction, with Clay Mazing constantly winking at the audience using period references (“Can I bum a fag”?) to underscore how times, and language, have changed.

They’re in constant survival mode with the “show,” especially troubled by the diva/star GoGoMcGregor, who is restless with vaudeville and wants to gain her fame on the silver screen. She spends much of the show serving as the cynical counterpoint to LadyBEAST, who as aerialist and escape artist seeks to preserve all that’s good about vaudeville.

Much as it was with Cirque Copine’s “In Wonderland” at One Eyed Jacks, it’s when LadyBEAST and Sarah Stardust take flight that “Vaude D’Gras” does the same; their aerial performances, together and separately, turn the shabby Happyland into a little palace of magic. While it’s perhaps best to leave the details vague, LadyBEAST’s escape trick at the show’s end is also a moment to behold, if for no other reason the degree of difficulty.

Similarly, the troupe’s greatest strength is when everyone’s onstage creating mayhem; while some individual performances are good but not often great, their collective energy, spirt and humor thrives in ensemble delivery. GoGo McGregor especially excels in these moments; though she’s one of the city’s most popular burlesque performers, and delivered a solid fan dance here, she’s an even better comic talent and wise-cracker, getting her bitch on with every single member of the cast. (Watching them break character with her one-liners is a particular thrill.)

Guglielmo is similarly versatile, whether he’s emceeing or singing arias or performing familiar sideshow stunts such as getting a tattoo on his ass and then a nipple pierced. This was a highlight of last year’s show. (Afterward, he combined the two by performing the Neopolitan classic “O sole mio” before morphing into Elvis and transitioning it seamlessly into “It’s Now or Never.”) The capper was a double busting of a cinder block on his stomach along with GoGo McGregor (with LadyBEAST and Clay Mazing doing the honors.)

Clay Mazing possesses a similar charm, even when not every one of his whip-cracking tricks hits the mark. My only real wish was to have seen a little more of the knife-throwing antics of Madame Daggers, who spent most of her time playing violin with the excellent Vaude D’Gras Band (led by Sarah Jacques, who also performs in the Cirque Copine band.)

“Vaude D’Gras” could use a little tightening of the performances, but it remains a glorious celebration of both the circus-arts talent in the city and the chemistry and spirit of an ensemble that plays well together and off one another. Monday night is the last chance to see them before, like Carnival itself, it vanishes for another year.

For show details, click here. For more on New Orleans’ circus-arts scene, click here.

Snapshots and snap thoughts from the Endymion parade (photos)

Posted on by under mardi gras

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I’ll have more fleshed-out thoughts on the massive, unnecessarily reworked Endymion parade — with its 50th anniversary theme, “Endymion Through the Years” — when the brain is less foggy, but until then, here’s what I wrote on Facebook, along with some fun photos:

So in a sense I’m a big fat Endymion hypocrite, partly cuz in the before times I never went, but more recently because of my disdain for whatever happened between NOPD and Ed Muniz that resulted in the bone-headed decision to close off the neutral ground at the load-up zone — which made watching Endymion so fun. Putting aside anger, I did the unlikely and staked out a pretty great spot in front of Delgado, with good friend Todd Price. And then suddenly, Mardi Gras happened: Met an incredibly cool and gracious guy next to our spot who offered to share his spot with us, offered Eli a morning water bottle (he’d been there since 7:30 a.m. setting up), and we wound up having some mutual acquaintances and talked about WYES and the great Aislinn Hinyup, who showed up later. And then we welcomed friends to our tarp area, and because we’d staked out so much space, invited a family with a bunch of kids to join us to our right so they could catch throws (and a couple of teen sisters to our left).

And on the way home I recognized a man grilling oysters who I’d interviewed at French Quarter Festival. And then of course awesome gumbo afterward courtesy Todd. Yes, Endymion is bloated and ridiculous and over-grown and not really my cup of tea, but Eli got tons of throws, Faith Dawson Simmons got to enjoy her favorite parade with her mom Adonicia Dawson, and for at least a few hours made new friends over fiber-optic floats and crazy throws and a few Parish Canebrakes. That, for me, is Mardi Gras.