For these superstar queens, holidays are anything but a drag
Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme dress up the season
When drag superstar BenDeLaCreme is on stage,she sports a smile that stretches from ear to ear, wears wigs that reach for the sky, and projects a perky, sunny disposition that is a mix of Florence Henderson and Mary Tyler Moore, with a dash of Ann Miller’s sass. In the annual holiday show she performs with fellow “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alum Jinkx Monsoon, her exuberant character embraces Christmas with manic zeal.
So it’s surprising to hear BenDeLaCreme, the person, not the persona, say she disliked Christmas growing up.
“When I was very young, Christmas meant wearing a tie, an itchy suit, and sitting around a table in Connecticut with my stuffy family while we all grinned and pretended we were on the same page,” she said on a Zoom call. “I grew up really not loving Christmas.”
That was the impetus for the bawdy and glittery holiday shows she has been writing and performing with Monsoon since 2018. “The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show” comes to the Wang Theatre on Tuesday. Now, instead of visiting her family or reliving unpleasant memories, she tours the United States and United Kingdom throughout November and December. She also looks forward to Christmas instead of dreading it.
Both Monsoon and DeLa are drag legends. Monsoon won the fifth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and went on to win the seventh season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars.” She’s released two albums, made her Broadway debut earlier this year in “Chicago,” and has been dubbed the “Queen of All Queens.” DeLa took the title of Miss Congeniality on season six of “Drag Race.” She famously voted herself off of “Drag Race All Stars.” This year, she found herself speaking out against bills banning transgender health care and public drag performances on MSNBC and “The Daily Show.”
Their holiday show incorporates original songs into a story line that playfully pits their characters against one another. They’re like “The Odd Couple,” but with false eyelashes and evening gowns. DeLa (the persona, not the person) is unwavering in her comdo mitment to spreading Christmas cheer, while Monsoon rolls her eyes, nurses martinis, and dismisses her friend’s shenanigans. Their chemistry is magic.
“We match each other’s intensity,” said Monsoon. “I think that’s why we work so well together. We both commit to characters. When you’re a drag artist, you spend a lot of years figuring out who you are. And then, once you know who you are, it’s rare that you find someone else doing it quite the same way.”
Jinkx, what was Christmas like for you growing up? Was it difficult as well?
Monsoon: Christmas was my favorite time of year. My grandma would throw a Christmas Eve party, and everyone who didn’t have somewhere to be for the holidays would come to my grandma’s house. I saw what DeLa was striving to do with her first solo holiday production. The whole purpose was to create that familial experience for people who weren’t welcome to their family’s holiday experiences or who didn’t grow up with that loving feeling in their family. It just became a way of taking what I received as a kid and providing that now for my community.
DeLa, I know you grew up in Connecticut and went to high school in Natick for a couple of years. Did you sneak into Boston regularly?
DeLa: I would take the train into the city and go to the bookstores. I would look for anything I could find about drag. I moved to Boston for one year before I went to college in Chicago. That was such a formative year for me because that’s the year that I saw Varla Jean Merman perform, and it’s also the first time I saw the Charles Busch film “Psycho Beach Party.”
Close to 200 drag queens have competed on “Drag Race” around the world. I’m wondering how you two decided to work together. There were a lot of queens to choose from.
DeLa: Jinkx and I are very aligned in terms of not only the entertainment that we love and draw inspiration from but also our bottom line as to why we it drag, which is an act of both political resistance and deep personal expression. Jinkx is one of the queens I’ve crossed paths with in life who approaches it the same way, and I think that really bonds and connects us.
The two of you made the rounds on talk shows when anti-drag bills were debated in Tennessee and Florida. Did you feel that there was pressure on you to step forward and be a spokesqueen?
DeLa: It didn’t necessarily feel like pressure. It was more that I could offer a perspective or a voice for the community. While oppression is really rearing its head right now in this country, it’s not unfamiliar to any visibly queer person or anyone who’s been in the drag business for a long time. We were riding a wave of public acceptance, and it was painful when we were suddenly under attack. I think I tried to offer hope to people who hadn’t experienced this kind of oppression before or hadn’t experienced it on a personal level. We’ve had to fight against oppression and pull ourselves out of it before. Now, we need to look to the future and fight for that future.
Have the demographics of the audience shifted over the years?
Monsoon: I would say that when we started doing this, we were pulling in the “Drag Race” fan demographic. But now the people we get are not necessarily interested in drag or “Drag Race,” but their friend who saw it last year tells them, “You love this type of theater. You would love this show.” So we’ve widened our audience in terms of people hearing about what we do through the grapevine who are not necessarily already drag fans.
Interview was edited and condensed. Christopher Muther can be reached at christopher.muther@ globe.com.