By Flaminia –

Last weekend Varla Jean Merman returned to our state to host the Connecticut Voice Honors awards event and to wow audiences with her one “woman” show Stand By Your Drag. The show at TheaterWorks Hartford was originally slated for one run but added another after quickly selling out. Varla is a comedian, film star, and drag pioneer. The new show is a mix of Varla’s signature campy, bawdy humor and earnest reflection on personal and political topics.  

Seeing a piano, an oversized martini glass, and a can of spray cheese on stage let the audience know this was going to be a fantastic show before Varla even walked out. Stand By Your Drag was an absolute delight for new fans and old. Varla was accompanied by Todd Alsup with his wonderful piano playing and vocals. At the heart of the hysterical musical numbers and standup are serious messages about the past, present, and future of drag and LGBTQ+ rights in America.

The show opened with a zany theme song announcing the star. Then Varla runs on stage in a camouflage gown. She asked the audience if it was “safe here.” She described the current moral panic over drag that has been rising in recent years as the inspiration for the show. “Last June, when I was home in Florida there were Nazis; but at that time in Florida if a drag queen had been out there protesting the Nazing, she is the one that would have been arrested,” Varla explained, followed by a hilarious parody of Kylie Minogue’s ‘Your Disco Needs You’ called ‘Your Drag Queen Needs You’.

Varla’s comedic talents are on full display in this show. Despite calling attention to serious issues, Varla maintained a sense of brevity, optimism, and humor throughout the show. Varla’s character voice, impeccable timing, and dynamic storytelling made every brilliantly stupid joke funnier. In the next segment of the show, Varla told the story of when she slipped on a Tic Tac. “Did you hear about the accident?” She asked the audience, “You didn’t? I’m shocked. It made national… blogs”. The story finished with a bang; a man dressed as a giant Tic Tac box threw oversized novelty Tic Tacs at Varla while she performed ‘Tic Tac’ to the tune of Ke$ha’s ‘Tik Tok’. The entertaining drag icon suffered a mishap during a show in Provincetown, MA in 2022, breaking her kneecap and rupturing her quadriceps tendon in an unexpected slip on a Tic Tac. However, the resilient diva diligently worked to recover and regain her mobility.

Varla Jean Merman has been a legend in the drag community since before RuPaul’s Drag Race was created which made drag significantly more mainstream. Varla has been performing comedy shows like this around the globe for decades. She was an early adopter of video skits, which she incorporates into shows. She’s perhaps best known for her role in the cult classic 2003 film Girls Will Be Girls. If you didn’t see Varla live, this movie is an incredible showcase of her immense talent. Her style of drag is increasingly difficult to find in a world where name recognition is often prioritized over performance quality, and where the mainstreaming of drag has weakened the rebellious nature of the art form.

As the production neared its end, Varla drives the show’s theme home. The penultimate song of the show is triumphant. She sang, “We may have given America the rainbow, but now there are some colors we need back.” Varla called the audience to “take back the red, white, and blue” despite the bigotry it has become increasingly connected to. She followed this tune with a history lesson of drag in this country, going as far back as the 1880’s, with the formerly enslaved William Dorsey Swann. Despite what conservatives spreading the current moral panic would have you believe, drag has always been present in the fabric of American culture and society. Varla ended the show with the titular song ‘Stand By Your Drag’. An affirmation of the power of drag performance.

The truths at the heart of this show are disturbing and hard to talk about. There has been a noticeable rise in hatred against the LGBTQ+ community, especially our most vulnerable and visible members like trans people and drag performers. It is not just limited to fringe hate groups like the Proud Boys. It is also influential figures like JK Rowling. It is also the major news outlets. It is elected officials and most of the GOP. It’s the people who have made the American flag a symbol that represents hateful ultranationalism.

Varla challenged the audience to reclaim and fly the flag alongside the progress pride flag and to remember and realize a vision of America as a place everyone belongs to regardless of who they are.

Click here to check out all the photos in the events gallery from Varla Jean Merman, Stand By Your Drag, at TheaterWorks Hartford in Hartford, CT on April 28, 2024. Photos by Kevin Ferrisi.