John Fisher's "Sex Rev: The Jose Sarria Experience"
A Wild and Brash Production of Sex Rev: The Jose Sarria Experience
Theatre Rhinoceros
Sex Rev: The Jose Sarria Experience by John Fisher returns after it’s sold out run in 2010 at Mama Calzo’s Voice Factory. It is now playing at the CounterPULSE Theatre on Mission Street, San Francisco through December 4th. John Fisher also directed this impetuous musical celebration of America’s first queer activist. It’s a no holds production that features everything from interactive slapstick comedy,( the audience stands and sings “God Save Us Nellie Queens” in the first act), disco dancing, a flourishing of anachronisms , compassion, intelligence and a lot of satire. It’s enough to make you dizzy but that is what Jose would have wanted. There is even a scene when the young Jose played exceeding well by Jean Franco gets into a rhetorical argument within the play calling John Fisher for miscasting the play by using an Anglo man for the older version of Jose Sarria.
Jose Sarria stared as a drag performer in San Francisco’s Black Cat Café a great Bohemian and Gay bar in the early 1950’s. It closed in 1964 due to some legal problems. I had the good fortune to meet Jose in 1961 and became friends with him during that year. I was part of a Warner Brother’s film crew filming a “B” 60 minute movie called “The Threat” at what this city was called “Hollywood North” in 1961(.A “B” film was a cheaply made quick film running anywhere from 60 to 80 minutes to fit the lower half of a double bill of movies that were popular at the time. )
A regular feature of the “Black Cat” was Jose’s mad interpretations of grand opera composers with him in full drag playing the heroine of operas like “Madame Butterfly”,” La Traviata” and “Aida”. These occurred every Sunday afternoon. I went to several of these Sunday’s soirées and got to know to Jose as a charming and outgoing individual who was willing to help in anyway the gay community. We also tried to find a scene in this film for him but the bosses in Burbank said NO.
“Sex Rev:” is a romping biography of the famous San Francisco drag queen from serving in the United States Army during World War 2 in France, to being a waiter and then a famous entertainer at the notorious “Black Cat”, to running for San Francisco supervisor (he lost but received over 6000 votes making the start of gay power in this city) to being the first to form the yearly “elections” of Emperors and Empresses (usually gay men and drag queens respectively). Today the Imperial Court is international and raises millions for AIDS patients. Jose also encouraged gay people who were caught in embarrassing situations to plead guilty and request jury trials when they were arrested on sexual offense charges. This would clog the court system with these cases that were difficult to sustain for lack of evidence. Throughout this 2 hour romp he would say “Swallow the evidence and ask for a jury trial”.
Donald Currie the narrator and kind of Everyman spins stories of his early sexual discovery in grade school, of trying to get into the Black Cat during his teen age years, of trying to make a statement of his gay life by being arrested and later wanting to be a wannabe drag queen. He gives a stand out performance as the narrator. Tom Orr plays one of the three Jose’s and his performance is mesmeric. He recreates those famous opera afternoons at the Black Car and selects members of the audience to be his costars. Orr even sheds his clothes for a moment of gratis frivolousness that stuns and amazes the audience.
Carlos Barerra is excellent as Jose Redux and asked the audience if anyone knew Jose personally. Yours truly gave the audience my little story of one afternoon at the Black Cat. No one else in the audience had met this legendary drag queen which made me feel a “little old”. Sean Keehan nicely plays Jimmy who was Jose’s lover and Robert Kittler is very good playing various roles from a cop, a corporal in WW2 and some HR types.
John Fisher successfully attempts to bring some sense of perception and order to the sane lunacy that defined Sarria’s public notoriety.
Sex Rev, The Jose Sarria Experience plays through December 4th at CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, San Francisco. For tickets call 1-800-838-3006 or on line at www.TheRhino.org