Camping Out with Busch

Die Mommie Die is a revival of an off-Broadway camp-fest written by, and starring, Charles Busch. I suppose it could be considered “new” even though it was first performed in Los Angeles in 1999 and was made into a movie in 2003. It looks like Mr. Busch decided a New York opening was timely. Anyway, it’s fun and mindless and, yes, pretentious…but in a good way. It did, however, leave me wondering if audiences under 40 even remember who Joan Crawford is, much less buy into spoofs of her screen persona. A couple/three years ago Mr. Busch went mainstream with a Broadway show called The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife which I thought sort of bizarre coming from his pen. Was he trying to be Neil Simon?

Whatever, Die Mommie Die is the kind of show he is famous for and the kind of show that is expected of him and the kind of show he should stick to. I thought it bogged down about three-quarters of the way through with some complicated exposition explaining some hairy plot turns but the bog was circumnavigated cleverly if not all that surprisingly. I did, however, love Mr. Busch’s choice of murder weapon.

Since there are two shows scheduled on Saturday nights, 7:00 and 10:00, it was over really early (90-minutes without intermission) and weird to be back out on the street by 8:45 looking for space at a happenin’ restaurant in the theater district. One cool thing is that the Saturday before Halloween there are a large number of adults in costume heading somewhere important. I really should haul out my Captain America outfit; it still fits well and makes me look young and butch if I wear the jowl-covering headgear.