Cabaret Chronicles - Gay Pride Edition

by Michael Barbieri
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Pangea is a quaint, quirky restaurant in NYC’s East Village.  At the back, you’ll find a 50 seat jewel box of a cabaret room.  This month, Pangea is celebrating Gay Pride with an eclectic line up of gay and drag performers.  I caught two of their shows:

Jeremy Lawrence: Lavender Songs - A Queer Weimar Berlin Cabaret
Jeremy Lawrence is a lovely gentleman of a certain age, portraying a slightly worse-for-wear, ex-prostitute drag queen, singing songs and telling tales of being queer in Weimar era Berlin.  In a show that draws frightening parallels between the rise of the Nazis and the rise of Trump, his very existence challenges the powers that be.  

Hitting the stage in a colorful feather boa, he struck a pose as if to say ‘Here I am, folks. Take me in!’  His look was reminiscent of Mick Jagger in the film of Bent - tatty wig in a perfect period hairdo, exaggerated make up, and a run down black sequined dress.  In his opening number “Can Love Really Be a Sin?”, his voice was ragged, but enthralling.  He welcomed all the ladies and gentlemen, and the gentlemen who’d rather be ladies, and ladies who’d prefer to be gents, which delighted the audience.  In “Lavender Song,” he asked ‘What makes them think they have the right to say what God considers vice?’ and sang ‘We’re not afraid to be queer and different.’  Throughout the evening, his songs let us know he’d fight those who challenge his right to be who he is; and though many of these songs were lighthearted in spirit, there was an underlying sadness - we heard of a pretty boy named “Moritz,” who strung him along, and we got to know his hero “Hannelore,” a genderfuck whore and performer, who wasn’t terribly pretty, and wasn’t a great singer, but could entrance an audience. She seemed to be a leader of some big conspiracy, and made him want to start a conspiracy of his own.  This seemed to be the genesis of Lawrence’s drag alter ego.  The sweet, melancholy “Peter, Peter” told of his desire to meet a lover, though he feared he’d ‘mess it up, like the last time, and the last time...’  Two of the standout numbers were “Münchhausen,” where he told us fanciful stories and then confessed to being a ‘liar, liar, big fat liar’ who relied on illusions to get through life, and “Chuck Out the Men,” which spoke to the power of women with ironic lyrics like ‘Men say they’re fighting terrorism, but they’re just shooting off their jism!’  Finally, he stripped off his drag and revealed his masculine self during “Don’t Show the World Your Heart” recalling Charles Aznavour’s “What Makes a Man a Man?”  Interestingly, in his men’s clothing he seemed more naked than when he removed his dress.  At the end, he confronted the audience with a timely piece of advice that literally knocked the wind out of me - I’ll let you hear that for yourself!

Lavender Songs is an important show.  Lawrence shows us that now, as then, when those in power would deny us our rights and our very lives, we can’t lose hope, and must fight that power!  I caught the closing performance, but should Jeremy Lawrence bring the show back, I strongly suggest you see it...and learn!

Ruby Powers - At The Baths!
Ruby Powers has been called “New York’s most joyous drag queen” and a “delightful drag diva,” and on June 20th, as part of Pangea’s Gay Pride lineup, she made her solo drag debut, and I was there to see it!

At The Baths, Ruby Powers’ celebration of the legendary Continental Baths and the entertainers who performed there, was a sweet, funny evening of songs, stories, and drinking games involving sex terms!  The evening started on the perfect note, with her pianist and drummer taking the stage wearing nothing but cute white robes.  Wearing a long, tasteful black robe with a red sequined detail, Ruby opened the show with “Up The Ladder To The Roof,” one of many songs made popular by Bette Midler, the biggest star to come out of the Baths.  After removing her robe to reveal a perky little black dress with a plunging neckline, she explained that the Continental was home to “Bette, Barry Manilow, and Barbra Streisand...’s sister,” then gave us a slyly sexy “Hey, Big Spender,” on which she occasionally lost her pitch, but still showed off a solid singing voice, overall.

Remarking on the differences between today and the early ’70’s, when the bathhouse scene was flourishing, she mentioned that back then, a house cost $40,000, a car cost $2,500, a ride on the subway was 30 cents, and a gallon of gas cost 36 cents.  She then added, “I wonder how much a drag queen cost back then?”

After a lovely version of “Do You Want To Dance?”, another Midler hit, came that scandalous drinking game: Ruby read a list of sex acts that had been popular in the days of the baths, and we had to take a sip for every act we’d tried - after seeing the results, she called us all filthy whores...and   then, of course, launched into “Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves!”

We got a sweet, melancholy “My Sweetheart’s The Man In The Moon,” a tune from 1896 that Midler recorded, and a fun, upbeat “I Feel the Earth Move” that featured a melodica break from Ruby, that wasn’t nearly long enough - believe me, you ain’t lived till you’ve seen a drag queen blowing a melodica!

After touching on the sexual politics of the day, and how Midler lent her presence to the first Gay Liberation rally, Ruby spoke of how gentrification has changed our city; that many of the businesses, clubs and bars our community frequented back then, have been replaced by corporate chain stores, and that the space that was the Continental Baths - a hub of sexual freedom and birthplace of amazing talent...is now a parking garage.  This led into the very aptly chosen “Big Yellow Taxi” with it’s message ‘...you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.’

She left us with a hopeful message, saying that although we’ve lost some of the togetherness we found in the post-Stonewall era, perhaps we’re now finding our community among friends and online, with social media like Facebook, which in her eyes is maybe not such a bad thing.  She closed out the evening with a powerful “I Shall Be Released,” and of course, one of Midler’s signature tunes, “Friends.”

Ruby Powers is extremely likable - she smiles sweetly throughout her show, she doesn’t take herself too seriously, and even her digs at the audience were good-natured.  The only indication that this was her first solo outing was that she constantly referred back to her note cards to remind her of what bit or song came next in the show, but with Ruby, even that was endearing.  I look forward to seeing what she has to offer once she has a little more experience under her...skirts!

For more information on Pangea, its Italian/Mediterranean menu, or its lineup of diverse performers, go to m

Michael Barbieri

Food & Entertainment Writer