Why drag is my lifeline
Performing live in drag heals me. During a pandemic that has all but annihilated the live arts sector, I’ve felt the loss of live performance more deeply than I could ever have anticipated.
As someone who suffers with OCD, it’s hard for me to feel truly present in any given situation. A calm walk in a park will be interrupted by outlandish fears that have no basis in reality; a long-overdue conversation with a friend will be ruined by the bully in my head, screaming at me for whatever I have just said.
As I write this column, I’ve had to wrestle with my mental dictators, who try to pull me away from the task at hand to ruminate over things I have absolutely no control over. For me, the only place when I feel truly connected to the here and now, when my brain is embodied in the present space, is when I’m performing live in drag.
It’s the intense connection with an audience, who I’m inviting to buy into the rules of the new reality I’m presenting them with, that brings me joy. This contract is based on trust, and in exchange for their full hour’s attention, there’s nothing else for me to do but live in that moment. The entire outside world – no matter how terrifying it is – ceases to exist inside the drag show continuum.
If I’ve had an especially shit week — however that manifests, whether I’ve been dumped by a boy, or I’m subjected to racism on Grindr — the first thing I do is book a gig to perform in. Because for that hour, in that room, nothing else exists. Losing that privilege during this pandemic has allowed a great number of anxieties to fester inside me, with no available outlet except my brain.
Outside drag, it’s hard for me to deal with these most prevalent fears. Decades of familial rejection has meant that it’s difficult for me to open up in relationships, and I’m a bundle of terror ahead of every Tinder date. But somehow, in drag, I am able to access the most vulnerable side of myself in a room of hundreds, with absolutely no nerves whatsoever.
The armour of makeup and costume, of presenting myself in a way that I envision, gives me the confidence to access the truest sides of myself – and to sublimate that trauma into glory for an audience. It’s a form of therapy, of using my base experiences to connect with a room of strangers, allowing my biggest fears to become a source of entertainment and joy. To, hopefully, find resonance with others who are also seeking an hour of escape from their lives, albeit on the other side of the stage from me.
And so
I hope, for fellow queer performers and audience members alike, who desperately seek the stage in order to feel whole and find connection with other people’s stories, that live arts find a way to survive in our new world.
“In drag, I am able to access my most vulnerable side”