The Girl with the

Pearl Necklace

By Diane S. Frank

Jeff Roberson returned to Cleveland with his drag persona "Varla Jean Merman". This time the show was titled "The Girl with a Pearl Necklace". Since this isn’t that sort of publication I can’t explain the title. In fact when I got back from the show and my partner asked me what it meant, I couldn’t get out the words without stammering. None of which stopped me from laughing and laughing throughout the show.



For those of you who haven’t seen a VJM show, they work around a central theme, generally expressed a double entendre. Last year was "Under a Big Top". Roberson presents songs both original and covers, patter and dance as part of the show. Roberson manages costume changes by interspersing videos. The opening video this year was "Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places." Varla, it appears had succumbed to the urge to get married. My favorite shot was in front a of Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters. In a nod to Varla’s apparent growing popularity in the lesbian community there was a cover of an old country-western song Patsy Cline’s "She’s Got You," in which Varla recalls an early affair with her FedExÔ delivery woman., before she discovered she really liked boys.

Gifted with an amazing voice, Roberson actually sang the famous "Un bel di" aria from Puccini’s "Madama Butterfly" in one number, before segueing into a medley done in pseudo Japanese Pop style. Hidden on the back of her kimono was a baby ventriloquist’s doll. I couldn’t make out a word here as the rapping was too fast (this from a performer who has also done "Why can’t rappers teach their kids to speak," a take off on a song from "My Fair Lady").

One of the tensions in the show is the extent to which Varla stays a self-mocking drag character and the moments when Varla is simply a talented and entertaining woman. Drag performances often feature something that I respond to as sublimated self-hatred, and I find that self-denigration one of the most tedious parts of a drag show. I thought those were minimized this year. One of the numbers in the show, a song about the urban legend of kidney stealers, didn’t have anything to do with drag.

Roberson remains a talented performer with many gifts. But I detect a drift away from the conventions of drag, as perhaps Roberson senses what works with an increasingly broad-based audience.