Drag star forced home by Covid-19
Some of the New Zealanders sitting in the surreal quiet of the bus, awaiting Covid-19 isolation, had returned from Brisbane and some from Sydney – but only one was returning from fabulousness.
After eight years of gowns, heels and towering hair, Shay Evans was returning to the thunderously quiet Ka¯piti Coast and his grandparents’ home.
He was coming home with his make-up mirror to a town of love, hope, pain and – most importantly – family.
Evans spoke to Stuff about his odyssey from O¯ taki to the top of
Sydney’s drag queen scene and back again – after Covid-19 crashed the Australian entertainment sector.
He was blotting down his eyebrows with a glue stick at his grandparents’ dining room table, preparing for his first gig in four months as his drag alter-ego.
It all started in mid-March – Covid-19 closed down the city’s gay community. Venues were empty shells and the calls for gigs stopped cold.
Evans had been working five nights a week as one of the most popular drag acts in the city of 5 million. He clung on till his savings vanished, then he told his grandmother he was coming home.
Nana Kathy Evans was sitting in the lounge watching as her grandson became Felicity Frockaccino. She had seen it all before for years – in fact, she was the one that helped him go to Sydney.
‘‘I shouted him a trip to Mardi Gras for the weekend – knew he wasn’t coming back.’’
His nana took Stuff aside while Evans was outside and pointed to a photo of him as a toddler dressed as Lionel Ritchie. ‘‘We knew he was gay since he was only about 2,’’ she said, matter of factly.
For a while in Sydney, Evans said, he was ‘‘living the Superman syndrome’’ – working as a retail Clark Kent during the day, and a mascara-laden Superman at nights.
In the end, he quit his day job and started living every entertainer’s dream – fulltime work doing what he loved.
‘‘People come to see drag shows to get out of their mundane lives. If they are having a bad day, they can come out of a drag show feeling amazing.’’
Drag was a mask, an armour, a tool to be able to entertain others, he said. ‘‘And a great way to get free drinks.’’
He returned in May and had his temperature checked before being loaded on a bus and taken to a hotel for two weeks. You stay in your room, he said, and wait.
Now he’s had his first gig in months; it’s a rest home but it is a start. He shimmied into a dress, which he made himself, and spritzed on a cloud of Vera Wang perfume. ‘‘I call it Vera’s Wang.’’
Evans was raised by his nana Kathy and his granddad Ted Evans, who have lived in O¯ taki for 50 years.
Before he left in his nana’s tiny Mazda Demio, he talked about growing up gay in a small town – or anywhere, really.
‘‘It was a hard time for me, I got bullied a lot at school, because I was fat too – fat and gay. But it is something you learn to overcome because it is not about you. The people bullying you: it is them.’’