BY SCOTTT STIFFLER | After an absence of nine long years, a masterful melting pot of gender illusion, golden age Hollywood glam, highly skilled lip-synching and diva deification has returned to New York.
From Pyramid Club to Tompkins Square Park to Club 57, the East Village incubators that hatched Lypsinka in the early 1980s are either gone forever or tamed beyond recognition — and yet, the ravages of time have had no such luck chipping away at The Lyp’s alabaster skin or flawlessly executed acts of defiance in the face of adversity.
Although technically mute, this lady is no sphinx. She’s not even a lady, technically — but by moving her lips in perfect synchronicity to a skillfully woven soundtrack of films, musicals and concert recordings, the “supreme archivist of irony” towers above lesser drag acts, for whom the likes of Joan Crawford, Judy Garland and Bette Davis are little more than camp punchlines.
Throughout the furiously paced “Boxed Set,” the performer embodies dozens of nightclub entertainers and screen stars who hit their career highs long before Lypsinka was born. Sharing a love for these women will certainly elevate your own experience, although a surprising amount of the show’s humor is anchored in broad physical comedy, economic arches of the eyebrow and deeply expressive flourishes of the wrist — flawlessly executed, fleeting moments whose appeal exists independently of their source material. “The Passion of the Crawford” works a lone persona and, for the most part, sticks to the sequential transcripts of two well-documented Joan Crawford interviews. Whether she’s riffing on a three-second sound bite or in it for the long haul, Lypsinka excels at contemplating the high cost of submission, defiance and perseverance — not by peeling back the onion, but by adding layer upon layer upon layer.
As much fun as Lypsinka is to be around, the trilogy’s greatest pleasure comes from the one who really wears the pants in the relationship between performer and persona (or does he?). “Show Trash” is John Epperson’s amiable, soft-spoken take on that old cabaret formula: one man on stage, tinkling the ivories, reviewing his life from birth to present. The former American Ballet Theatre rehearsal pianist consistently amuses with insights set to cleverly reworded show tunes, yet the standout moments come from modest and revelatory anecdotes related to his upbringing in Hazlehurst, Mississippi. Fans expecting Lypsinka’s origin story won’t leave the theater disappointed, though, as “Show Trash” has plenty to say about the glorious excesses that made the old New York so conducive to his demanding alter ego.
LYPSINKA! THE BOXED SET
THE PASSION OF THE CRAWFORD
and
JOHN EPPERSON: SHOW TRASH
In rotating repertory through Jan. 3, 2015
At the Connelly Theater
220 E. Fourth St. (btw. Aves. A & B)
General Admission: $45 for one show, $80 for two, $105 for all three
Premium Admission (reserved seating, plus beverage): $60 for one show, $100 for two $125 for all three
Purchase tickets at 866-811-4111 or lypsinka.com
