‘THE Lady in Question Is Charles Busch” does a solid job of documenting the life and art of the drag grand dame, whose life has been almost as tumultuous as the characters played by the Hollywood divas he channels.
Orphaned at an early age, young Charles, as his sisters recall, spent most of his time watching 1930s and ’40s melodramas on TV starring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck and other stars (seen in well-chosen excerpts) that he would eventually pay tribute to in his plays.
He moved to Manhattan with an aunt who encouraged his interest in show business with trips to the old Metropolitan Opera and the theater.
When, after college, the theater found him too flamboyant to cast, Busch staged the first of many shows he starred in and wrote: “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom” in 1984 at the Limbo Lounge in the then-seedy East Village.
It became a sensation that ran off-Broadway for five years and was followed by a flurry of other campy shows written and starring Busch, many of which are seen in rare video clips (as are the two film adaptations of his plays, “Psycho Beach Party” and “Die, Mommie, Die!,” neither of which do justice to his genius as a performer).
Along the way, several of his collaborators succumbed to AIDS. Even as Busch scored his greatest mainstream success – winning a Tony for writing “The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife” – he nearly died himself of a congenital heart ailment.
This documentary includes interviews with many of his surviving collaborators, including Rosie O’Donnell, who hired Busch to write the book for the misbegotten musical “Taboo.”
But the best dish comes from the charmingly self-deprecating Busch, who is also a noted film historian.
Filmmakers John Catania and Charles Ignacio inexplicably fail to even mention pioneering drag impresario Charles Ludlam, whose Theater of the Ridiculous helped pave the way for Busch’s success.
But “The Lady in Question” (the title comes from one of Busch’s plays, which in turn borrowed it from an obscure Rita Hayworth opus) is still invaluable as theater history. And a new, faux-silent short directed by and starring Busch and included here makes us look forward to his debut as a feature director at next month’s Tribeca Film Festival.
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THE LADY IN QUESTION IS CHARLES BUSCH
[***] (Three stars)
Viva!
Running time: 90 minutes. Not rated (profanity, sexuality). At the Quad, West 13th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues.
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