Los Angeles 12.08.2009

Stirred, With A Twist

Arias with a Twist ends soon at the REDCAT

Almost anything is enhanced when a twist is added. Cocktails, movies, your first couple's ballroom dance at Balliamos, all come to mind. But we get tipsy just upon mention of the surreal stage legend Basil Twist being added to the incomparable drag art of Joey Arias.

The tremendous serving of camp and innovation is being dished out at none other than the REDCAT Theater at the Disney Concert Hall. Though the venue itself is iconic, it's all about the serendipitous pairing of Twist and Arias.

Twist, the sole American to graduate the prestigious École Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette in France, supplies the disorienting (and anatomically correct) puppets, while 60-year-old Arias brings an 18-inch waist (our favorite amount of inches!) and Billie Holiday-style vocals to the twisted (pun intended) production.

Mix it all together and served straight gayly up, Arias with a Twist is a complete sensory feast.

Sure, the stage is smaller than the one we hired day laborers outside of Home Depot to build next to our bed, but Twist's scale-distorting set and the body-contorting costumes by designer Thierry Mugler allow Arias to completely conquer the performance (sometimes literally). Whether she's sporting alien tentacles or devouring an entire miniature city, there's nothing the macabre fixture of New York nightlife can do that wouldn't be considered art.

And if you think you're ever going to see a high-camp drag performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall again after the show ends this Sunday, you're most likely mistaken... unless you count the hot bitches stumbling down the sidewalk in front of the building after Mustache Mondays, who, though ferocious in their own right, don't hold a Pottery Barn candle to Arias.

Through Sunday, December 13
Tickets: $20 - $40
REDCAT Theater in Walt Disney Concert Hall
631 W. 2nd Street, Downtown
(213) 237-2800
www.redcat.org

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