The Seattle Times 's Review of Return to the Garden of Allah

Reviewed by Misha Berson
Seattle Times theater critic

Open Circle retells story of Seattle's 'Garden of Allah' cabaret

The fellow is a big bruiser - but one with carefully applied mascara, a be-fruited turban a la Carmen Miranda, and a stage name befitting his raucous comedy-drag act: Hotcha Hinton.

The real Hotcha stopped doing female impersonation shtick decades ago. But burlesque, of the gay variety at least, isn't quite dead yet.

Some current Seattle drag performers, including the irrepressible Benjimen Blair as Hotcha, are resurrecting burlesque's bawdy spirit in the new stage docu-revue, "Return to the Garden of Allah."

Devised by writer Ian Bell and director Scott Bradley for Open Circle Theater, this amiable, uneven show at the Re-Bar simulates an outing to Seattle's Garden of Allah, a gay-owned First Avenue cabaret spot.

Catering to sailors and civilians, men and women, the Garden lasted from 1946 to 1956, when economic pressures (i.e., the rising payoff demands of the police), the decline of live variety shows and the intolerant Cold War social climate closed it down.

Bell and Bradley give you a little history lesson about all that.

But they also aim to celebrate the drag entertainers whose cabaret memories are recorded in the book "An Evening at the Garden of Allah," by Don Paulson and Roger Simpson. We're talking those daring male divas who sang a little, danced a bit, cracked lewd jokes with panache, and looked swell in slinky gowns which might, during a number, get elegantly peeled off - down to the lacy underwear, if not the hairy chest.

There are still people around who recall what the old Garden of Allah was really like. The invented one is campy, a little tacky, a bit of a soap opera and a showcase for some amusing R-rated acts, featuring fictionalized versions of real performers.

Though battling some minor costume troubles in their strip teases, the show's two resident prima donnas are impressive. As Jackie Starr, Andrew Tasakos exudes bona fide glamour and elan. And Wade Madsen's arch Francis Blair glides over his bumpy double-entendres to dispatch classic bits, including an androgynous tango in which he's half male and half femme.

Equally assured is Benjimen Blair's comic top-banana Hotcha, who joins in a Andrews Sisters-style cowgal number that brings down the house.

The "real" women on hand have wimpier assignments. Club singer Wanda (Karen Gruber) delivers standard tunes competently, but blandly.

And Jennifer Jasper's butch lesbian comic Nick Arthur is well-costumed (by designer Ken Powers), but her character and moth-eaten jokes lack oomph. (She also struggles, as do her cohorts, with a dangling microphone that's very unwieldy.)

The scripted "offstage" segments of "Garden of Allah" are generally weaker than the saucy strip routines and winking double-entendre novelty tunes ("Hot Nuts," "You Can Look, But You Can't Touch") backed by musicians George Shreck and Doug Marapodi.

The dialogue for these fictional glimpses into the private lives of the performers (who also include Will Lutey's Skippy LaRue) have a stilted and rhetorical ("The woman you married is a man in a dress!") ring. But they do suggest what these folks were up against, personally and professionally.

Jackie "marries" a handsome slacker, Bill (Christopher Guilmet), who can't decide if he's gay or straight. Nick hits the bottle hard when girlfriend Rita (Morgan Rowe) ditches her for another woman. Wanda's interracial marriage, and would-be pregnancy, are alluded to. And as the club hits hard times, the drag artists face arrest and worse by taking to the rough, tawdry carnival circuit.

In a singularly explosive moment of drama near the end, "Return to the Garden of Allah" also reminds you that the club provided a friendly haven for many - but one never immune from the dangerous bigotry just outside the door.

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