Performing not a drag for talented queens
Whether they are touring the regions or in the big cities – send in the queens, it’s showtime. Andre Chumko reports.
Arow of giant, coloured wigs on clamped-down mannequin heads blow in the wind. The van carrying them is overtaken by a family of four. New Plymouth drag queens Erika and Coco Flash are sitting in the front seats of the van, driving.
Bobby pins and sequins are strewn across its floor. They are on a South Island highway, en route to their next destination for their nationwide tour,
Rainbow Storytime.
Somewhere in Timaru, local woman Wendy Newman circulates a hand-written petition among churches with a plan to stop them reading a book to children at the library there.
‘‘Let our little ones enjoy the innocence of childhood without being sexualised by inappropriate adult entertainment which is divisive and not inclusive,’’ Newman wrote on her petition.
The girls got the last laugh. After publicity about the petition, several venues had been in touch about the now-notorious incident, wanting to hire them.
A counter-petition in support of Coco and Erika received more signatures than the original, while several local councillors expressed support for the pair as the petitionwas presented to a meeting.
While the queens had to postpone their Timaru stop-off because of gathering restrictions, it wasn’t the last confrontational behaviour the pair experienced on the road.
Later, a staffer at Napier’s Thirsty Whale bar would tell the queens to ‘‘f... off’’ when they asked to perform there. The staffer who allegedly sent the message is now under investigation.
Small town queens, big dreams
Erika – real name Daniel Lockett – started drag about five years ago, in what she says was a natural escalation from her being involved in musical theatre shows in Taranaki:
Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Rocky Horror.
Her persona and aesthetic has been developed from filmic blonde bombshell femme-fatale types. She always wears pink: ‘‘It’s an inviting colour.’’
Meeting Coco (Sunita Torrance), the pair quickly became friends. They both get their drag family name from Coco’s events business, Flash Mob Entertainment.
A hairdresser during the day, Erika has performed to crowds of more than 12,000 people, including for audiences all across New Zealand. Once she did amonth-long run in
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
‘‘I love being on stage. For any performer, especially me ... it’s such a thrill. I get such a rush.’’
The adoring eyes on clapping bodies are a juxtaposition from the judgmental, glaring gazes from Lockett’s younger years.
On the road for Rainbow
Storytime, she and Coco shared in the van three beds, amiddle table (which morphed into a wig station), and a manual waste system. ‘‘I guess I assumed it would magically disappear,’’ Erika says.
They had been talking about taking the show on the road for a couple of years, but never got around to it until bargain hire-van deals earlier this year cropped up, thanks to the coronavirus.
Coco, who before adopting a drag personawas an Amy Winehouse impersonator, said you would never be able to pay for the publicity they received by the petition-starters. The implication the pair were trying to indoctrinate children ‘‘completely backfired’’.
Most places they visited – Hamilton, Cromwell, Kaiko¯ura – were overwhelmingly supportive, and returned decent, often sold-out (Covid-appropriate) crowds.
With Rainbow Storytime, there was a youth focuswhere they could ask questions.
‘‘Kids are kids. They don’t associate us with anything,’’ Coco says. ‘‘We’re there for people with disabilities, to embrace cultural differences. ... You could see there were kids there [thinking], ‘these are my people’.’’
When they were in Hastings, a librarian told them that in the past, religious schools in the area had never let students come to see visiting drag queens. This upset Erika far more than the petition, or being labelled a paedophile. ‘‘Why would people hold others back from learning something, or meeting people?’’
Drag’s changing face
More than 15 years ago, a young Blair Macbethwas in high school in
Manawatu¯ when he hosted a show at Feilding Little Theatre in drag. Later his persona Spankie Jackzon was born, going on towin season two of TVNZ’S original series House of Drag.
Now 36, Jackzon hasn’t had recent pushback like the Flash sisters and considers herself fortunate because of it. She lived inmelbourne for 12 years, making her way up the scene there, onlymoving home to Palmerston North six years ago.
‘‘I have a lot of accepting people around me. Growing up in Palmerston North, I’d go out all the time in drag and go out to clubs.
‘‘It helps that I’m seven foot one [in heels] – people aren’t going to take me on.’’
But people also know Jackzon locally. This year, she’s hoping to host Christmas in the Square for the city council.
Any issues she’s experienced with others normally came from people not seeing drag for what it is: a performance. That could be by sexualising it, or confusing it with cross-dressing.
‘‘I don’t see drag as any different to anyone who dresses as a clown, or Santa at Christmas-time.’’
Performing in regional areas can be a double-edged sword for drag queens, in that because of a lack of access to drag, ticket to shows are often sold-out.
The flip side, is that because of a lack of drag exposure, there’s a lack of wider community understanding about what it is.
But Jackzon – who doesn’t drive, but is happy to take the bus has foundmost provincial New Zealand towns open.
Television shows have helped. Rupaul’s Drag Race going mainstream has catapulted the art form to astronomical heights. Drag can also be a career now, with many queens being celebrities in their own right.
As Jackzon puts it, ‘‘there’smoney to be made, and people are ready to pay it’’.
In his day job Macbeth runs a childcare facility, looking after those between ages 5-14. Their parents know he does drag, and accept him for it. He reckons there’s more space for drag queens to engage with children, as Coco and Erika are doing.
‘‘We need more of that, going into schools and spreading [messages of] diversity, acceptance and tolerance.’’ Shay Evans started drag in his hometown, Kapiti's Otaki 15 Years ago. In 2012 he packed up and moved to Sydney: ‘‘[to] level up, in a sense’’. When Covid happened earlier this year, Evans – whose drag name is Felicity Frockaccino – came home. Frockaccino still remembers doing a lip sync competition at Otak College in drag. The song was Dusty Springfield’s You Don’t Have To Say You Loveme. Back then, Evans thought dragwas more like pantomime or theatre. It wasn’t until she travelled south to Wellington city’s bright lights she found her people. She would travel by train thereafter most weekends, doing her make-up on board. Frockaccino eventually outgrew New Zealand, hence the shift to
Australia, where the scene is even more competitive, more hectic. Her signature show was hosting drag bingo and trivia – skills which have helped her back in taki, at the local RSA.
She’s used to ‘‘crazies’’, and feels there’s a duty to maintain (some) level of professional conduct in dealing with the public when in drag, including not biting back – even with instances of outright homophobia – hard as that may be.
‘‘We get them all the time ... [but] we can teach people about differences. We can change people’s minds.’’
Frockaccino says drag never used to be a good career, it was impossible to live off. There were maybe 10 drag queens in a city in the 2000s. Auckland was the biggest scene – ‘‘the scene’’ – but performing was mostly in gay bars and cabaret venues like Caluzzi.
Now, urban centres are desensitised to drag, they have burgeoning amounts of queens – fishy (feminine) queens, corporate queens, baby (young) queens are all coming onto the scene, even in smaller areas.
George Fowler is a drag king, and has been performing for five years. Kings dress in masculine drag, and personify male gender stereotypes.
Fowler’s drag persona – Hugo Grrrl – in his own words, was born out of an unconscious, organic, ‘‘gender identity crisis’’. He went from performing comedy, cabaret, poetry and burlesque in dive bars to winning the first season of House of Drag.
It was lonely when he first started out but now the capital hosts at least three full-blown drag shows a week, and not just in gay bars – Fowler locked in a show at Circa Theatre.
The drag is more polished, innovative, even world-class. Performers are tight-knit, there’s camaraderie. Frockaccino used the term sisterhood to describe the familial bond between queens here.
Jackzon says Youtube and social media have created a bit of a divide – young queens learn how to paint their faces online these days: ‘‘The problem with that is it’s all look and no substance’’. But ‘‘old school’’, traditional drag ideals which put value on performance still persist today.
Fowler reckons Wellington may have the highest concentration of drag kings per capita, because of its lack of gatekeeping. ‘‘I take enormous pride in that. We spend a heap of time creating safe spots for newbies, fostering that talent.’’
But even his four-week Circa show, The Glitter Garden: A Drag Musical Extravaganza for Kids, has been attacked by internet trolls. Other patrons have threatened to boycott it because of the theatre putting up gender-neutral bathroom signs.
In many ways, Fowler says the pushback proves why the show – which covers themes including how to look after your friends – is so needed.
Erika says drag queens are ‘‘the new clowns’’ – the week she speaks to Stuff we’re unable to organise photographs as she’s already booked out for a children’s birthday party that weekend.
Talking about it reminds her of her own childhood, as ‘‘that weird little kid’’ who wore a dress andwas frowned upon for it. ‘‘Kids [can be] like that still. We went around the whole country [trying to say that] really, it’s just fabric ...
It’s just thread.’’