Gash

Gash!: Whatever happened to Baby Charlie?

Somewhere Charles Ludlam is smiling.

David Benjamin Tomlinson, as Joan, peers down from an imperious height and explains grief:

It stumbles around our hearts like a baby in barbed-wire boots.

Gash! struts along wearing barbed-wire stilettos.

When two sisters named Joan and Bette are, in the midst of a violent storm, marking the anniversary of the night their mother "slaughtered" their father and an infant Charlie (whose soul may now be residing in a bloodthirsty ventriloquist puppet) . . . it is a good sign that the audience is being treated to an evening of Gothic gruesomeness and revealed secrets. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Hush . . . Hush Sweet Charlotte, Strait-Jacket, Sunset Boulevard, August: Osage County, and the sort, were movies that while ostensibly horror films became camp classics due to the overwrought performances of the actresses of a certain age.

How do you satirize what already veers dangerously close to parody? Gash!, though very, very funny, doesn't come to mock the melodrama but rather to send a poison valentine to the entire genre of hag horror. Tomlinson's script is witty without being nasty and director Clinton Walker speeds the action along with dramatic, and melodramatic, flourishes. The only flaw is that in reaching for meaning and resonance beyond laughs of recognition or awe, the escalation into hilarious horrific farce ends a few minutes, and much Elly-Ray Hennessy, before Gash! does. When most of the uniformly fine cast is feigning death and the non sequitur, but hilarious, climactic gag has done its bit to reduce the audience to helpless laughter, it is time for a black-out. Or, in this case, blaring disco for a curtain call.

There is probably not a gay man in existence who hasn't muttered, "But you are Blanche, you are," whether aware of the source of the quote or not. Tomlinson feeds himself, and the rest of the cast, deliciously nasty bon bons of lines that they relish, while remaining in full haughty movie star serious acting mode, spitting out. Aurora Brown, in a blond wig that is the next best thing to drag, bemoans that, "I never wanted to be crazy. I just wanted to be difficult," and we believe her. And we relate to her which is the most astonishing thing about Gash! In the same way that Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? makes us root for, fear for, fear and love Bette Davis, Gash! elicits as many complicated emotions as it does laughter - and a few jumps out of one's seat - if one was only not so involved, and trying to keep track of a ridiculously convoluted plot, to bother thinking about anything other than being entertained.

Tomlinson has only to arch an eyebrow or strike a pose to express utter disdain or etch an acidic bit of repartee. Ryan Kelly shuffles as the maid and somehow convinces us that he could possibly be dowdy. (He also wields a mean bible.) The predatory lesbian next door is lasciviously incarnated by Carolyn Taylor who gets laughs using Brown's breasts, banana bread and an axe hat as props.

A shirtless Shane MacKinnon,

Bette: Tennesse is the strongest man I've ever seen.
Joan: Clearly it's been a while since you've been to the circus.

a dusting of golden fur over muscles and tats, is always welcome, and when Brown shreds his wet wife-beater out of sheer lust, we vicariously join right in. Tim Post is a tall drink of water as the doctor who melts Joan's frigid heart and he has created a giddy bit of physical comedy to accentuate his shocking demise. Charlie is appropriately wooden in demeanor but vocally evil incarnate.
They had faces then. And so does Gash!, all wide eyes, flared nostrils and calculated poses. It is delightful, demented, a little bit scary, and a whole lot of funny. And whether the murderous child/puppet was deliberately named after Mr Ludlam or not, Charles would be honoured to see Tomlinson step into heels and follow in his trailblazing footsteps.