By Eve Ensler

Cleveland Music Hall Little Theatre (May 1^st- May 27^th, 2001)

Reviewed by Diane Frank

Men and women are fundamentally, physically and biologically different. On top of that we add our cultures, cultures which without exception say that humans with one set of physical characteristics should behave one way, and humans with the other set should behave another. Sorting out what is innate and biological and what is cultural and learned may fall in the class of "hard" problems, things like how does consciousness work.

Certainly, members of Triess groups are no strangers to this problem. Is the woman within talked about in official Triess communications a cultural artifact, a representation of the oppression our patriarchal system visits on men as the price paid for being the top gender? Or is it possible that there is a common human element at the physical level despite the differences in organs and physiology?

I don’t have answers for these questions. I suspect that everyone must find their own, and be willing to change their minds as they experience new things. One experiment that we can perform is to really listen to women’s voices and test the extent to which we identify with them and the extent to which we don’t. A rare opportunity to perform this experiment is going on this month (May 1^st- May 27^th) at the Cleveland Music Hall (Little Theatre).

Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues is running with Starla Benford and Sherri Parker Lee sharing the stage with a variety of celebrity guests including Cleveland born Carol Kane (Hester Street, Taxi, The Princess Bride among many others), Cleveland Musician Anne E. DeChant (Lilith Fair), Q-104’s Rebecca and Toni and Tina’s Wedding’s Lisa Ray.

What you can expect to hear is a set of finely crafted and performed stories about how women experience their vaginas, the thing that makes them physically women, and the thing that society bases a decision about behavior on. You’ll hear stories about sex, birth, rape, mutilation, sorrow and happiness. You’ll hear stories of ignorance, repression, awakening and knowledge. And when you hear these stories you’ll find out if you can really listen to them. Are the experiences foreign, unique to females, or is there something transcendentally human about them? Do you identify with the narrators, or find them different from you? Go find out. You'll find plenty to laugh about, and some things may make you uncomfortable, and some things that may make you leave claw marks in the arms of your seats. You may be offended, and then again not. You won't be bored and you won't regret going

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By Diane Sofia Frank

April 1, 2001. Club Atlantis. James Anthony McDowell, also known as Big Mamma or Biggy was waked at Club Atlantis this past Sunday. A memorial service attended by nearly 100 friends, lovers and fans was followed by a drag show featuring many of the performers who Big Mamma had nurtured, mentored and performed with in her decades in Cleveland.

Born in Pittsburgh in 1938, Big Mamma came to Cleveland in the 1960’s. Working a day job at the Hanna Deli downtown, Big Mamma by night became the Mother of all Cleveland area drag queens. Biggy was known for her generous support of the Cleveland gay community, and is credited with crossing color lines in Lakewood to bring the black and white gay communities together. According to one speaker, Biggy was the first person ever interviewed for the Gay People’s chronicle.

Losing a leg to complications of diabetes in the early 1990’s didn’t slow Big Mamma down, and she continued to perform until last year. Some of her performances were screened, however they were run without sound.

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If you happen to pass perfectly, then don’t bother reading these restaurant reviews. But if, like most of us, you need assurance that subtle or perhaps larger imperfections in your presentation will be ignored and your business welcomed then read on. Since I’ve been there and lived to tell about it, you can too. These places will guarantee that you can be all dressed up and always have somewhere to go. –Diane Sofia Frank

Ok, they’ve got a Website. The décor fulfills every cliché you’ve heard about interior decorators. It is elegant, clean and modern. The walls are lined with shrines to modern and past Gay icons. And yes, there’s disco music, but it wasn’t overwhelming. If I hadn’t been alone, I could have had a conversation as the party of librarians across the room managed to do easily. But the food? Let’s just say someone’s reach exceeded his grasp. The duck confit crepe was undersalted, and had a egg based wrapper rather than flour. The ingredients just didn’t come together (like my makeup, but that’s another story). I love hearts of palm, and make a few salads with that rare tropical ingredient myself. So perhaps I set myself up for disappointment. What I got was an ordinary vinaigrette salad with a spear of palm heart slapped on top of it. No adjustment was made to celebrate the flavor of the key ingredient. The cajun prawns I ordered came with red jacket potatoes and peppered green beans. The prawns were a bit on the dry side and the seasoning didn’t penetrate very far into the meat. My favorite part of the meal? The bread. The olive oil seasoned with basil and parmesan cheese was truly tasty, and I could easily have dipped the well made bread into it all night. Oh, and keep in mind that the lighting is on the bright side when you put on your makeup.

Snicker's Eatery & Drinkery

1261 W 76th St, Cleveland, OH

Phone: (216) 631-7555

You’ve got the perfect dress. You’ve got the perfect company. You’re ready to celebrate and break the budget a little (or more). How about a place you need no excuses to go to? Yes, the food at Snickers is that good. And I’m going to be even better. I won’t tell the details of how scrumptious everything I’ve had there is, from the poached hearts of romaine salad, to the various exotic appetizers, main courses of fish and chicken (they’ve got beef, lamb and pork too for the guys) and desserts to make you regret that you pulled those laces so tight, like the Pears Helene sprinkled with fresh roasted hazelnuts and accompanied by a pear/hazelnut sorbet. I won’t tell you, Okay? Just go and don’t tell me what you wore, where you got it, how much it cost, how it made you feel and how divine you looked in it. Just tell me that you loved the food too.

Harmony Bar and Grill

3359 Fulton Road     

Cleveland, OH

http://www.clevescene.com/issues/2000-12-07/nd2.html

(216)-398-5052

Here’s the scoop. Even though the tender but crisp green beans in the soup prove that homemade still means something here, haute cuisine this is not. Homey food for a little more than you’d like to pay. So what’s the attraction? The Saturday Night Sing Along with Bob Navis. Sure, showtunes are YAGC (yet another gay cliché), but c’mon, isn’t there a little ham in you just dying to really sing, not just lip synch? You can bring your own music. I did, and Navis read it cold. In fact he did better than I did, me coming down with middle-of-the-song-stage-jitters and losing my place. I promise, Ma, I’ll do better next time.  

2317 Lee Road
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118

(216) 932-3170

Now there are a lot of bars you can go to. I won’t mention them (sniff). But if you want to sample some wines, savor some good appetizers, hear a little music in a diverse crowd that isn’t a smoky, noisy, video porn flick showing drag bar then the Wine Room might be your after AO meeting destination. Tucked away inconspicuously in Cleveland Heights, it isn’t a place where you won’t get a glance, but you won’t get more than a second look either. The lighting is flatteringly dark.

792 West Market, Akron Ohio

Mon. ~ Thu. 7am ~ 10pm
Fri. ~ Sat. 7am ~ Midnight
Sun. 9am ~ 10pm
(www.angelfallscoffee.com)

There’s no Angel Falls in Akron just a coffee shop named after them. The shop features coffees from Venezuela where the falls are located. It also features objet d’art, paintings, whimsical décor and an open door for you. Frequented by U of Akron students, this coffee house is also a favorite haunt of members of the Akron Pride center. After the official meetings end, members will decamp to Angel Falls. Not being a coffee drinker myself I can’t rate the coffee. Their Chai is fine, and the pastry’s are quite good. The décor is what really makes the place. Instead of booths and tables, arms chairs and sofa’s dominate the setting, contributing to a cozy feeling that you are having a quiet moment with friends in someone’s living room. You can keep to yourself, or meet people. That’s up to you.

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In the past few weeks I’ve had a chance to do some outreach. I wish I could tell you that it was a remarkable experience. It wasn’t. Honestly, I was hoping for probing questions that would make me search my soul, controversial arguments both academic and religious. Instead I got the feeling that crossdressing is a rather unremarkable thing.

One session was in a gender studies class in the women’s studies department at Kent State. The topic of discussion was whether surgery was always warranted for transgendered people. I was invited along with 3 transssexuals, (1 FtM and 2 MtF) to represent the point of view that some transgendered people do just fine without a sex change operation thank you very much. There are some long standing controversies in feminist thinking about MtF transsexuals, with authors such as Janice Raymond and Mary Daly figuring prominently. Nope, nobody brought them up except little ol’ me. The class had been given a recent U.S. News and World Report article written by John Leo. Leo derided the move to provide civil rights to transgendered people. It’s a medical problem he said. The students were uninterested in his point of view. There were only a few men in the class and they didn’t participate in the discussion. The daring and un-squeamish hung around afterwards to view a surgery tape. I don’t think I need to mention what about.

The second session was more interesting, taking place in an upper division Multicultural Psychology class at Lorraine County Community College. The premise of this class was that gender itself was a cultural issue and that psychology might consider it from that point of view. The only question of interest directed to me, was whether I considered myself a woman. I wish I had asked the questioner what she thought…because I’m not certain what exactly she was getting at. What I told her was, that at this point in my life there were some social situations and people who knew and welcomed my company as she saw me. There were others that knew and welcomed me in a different mode; that was about all there was to it. Again there were only a small minority of guys in the class. Curiously all three had little goatees, and none asked any questions.

Diane Sofia Frank