Pearle Harbour's Chautauqua offers transformative ecstasy
18 Oct 2018

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

Well, the moon is broken and the sky is cracked
Come on up to the house
The only things that you can see is all that you lack
Come on up to the house

Tom Waits being sung scratchily by an unseen figure circling a tent where we are huddled on rough wooden benches, feels like the opening of horror flick, just in time for Halloween. Then Pearle Harbour makes her entrance, roughly parting the "milky folds" of her canvas-enclosed palace of worship, and we all sigh with relief, this is not scary, this is the fun kind of dress-up and fantasy.

Pearle Harbour's Chautauqua is difficult to explain. So difficult that Pearle herself gives up after cycling through "tent revival," "cabaret" and "faith in meaningful self improvement." No matter. Pearle is mesmerizing, hilarious and has no problem holding our rapt attention in the dainty palm of her gloved hand. Her description of how bleak and scary the world outside the tent is, is terrifyingly accurate. And in a world where CNN is indistinguishable from satire and horror, Pearle's brand of "breathe," "speak the truth," and "you betcha" is surprisingly comforting.

As a cohesive journey into the soul or transformative ecstasy, Pearle Harbour's Chautauqua is as rambling and digressive as any other sermon, faith is required. Pearle preaches, lays on hands, sings and dances, leads call and response, directs a madcap morality play puppet show, and does her best to wrap our simple minds around her simple philosophy for solace in troubled times. Not all of it makes sense, some of it makes too much sense, and the reached for climax is ragged and more obvious than intended, but damn it if we didn't all feel much better about life after spending time with Pearle.

Pearle Harbour is a divine creation who would probably be the first to tell one not to pay attention to the man, Justin Miller, behind the curtain. This is drag as exultant down and dirty clowning, putting words in carefully lipsticked lips that can speak truths that a comedian wouldn't dare. Pearle flirts, quips, and interacts with the audience in a way that is extraordinarily intimate, turning us into co-conspirators and maybe even believers. I for the most part abhor audience participation, yet there I was with my hand up the backside of a hand puppet, reading punchlines off a piece of cardboard, and having a great time doing so.

There is an odd disconnect that may be explained by the church revival setting. The set and environs are remarkably detailed and no ingenuity has been spared in evoking a time period and sense of austere pure rusticity. Pearle herself is a mixture of time periods and tropes, with the sharp tongue of a drag queen in complete control, but little of the salacious glee and only a soupcon of horniness. There are some double entendres but the best, the gayest, lines seemed to fly over the heads of most of the presumably straight audience (that is excluding the presence of Ginger Darling and Sunny Drake who never met an entendre they couldn't triple). Pearle is not playing the repressed woman about to crack, it is more complicated and metaphysical, she is trying to crack an existential problem that really seems to bother her. She wants to save the world, starting with this little tent of sinners.

Pearle has gams up to her cinched waist, eyes to rival Carol Channing weighted with post-Liza lashes, and is in constant motion. There is a warmth, a sincerity, that radiates through the mask of make-up and it lets Pearle get away with being blunt, bullheaded and a bit of a bully. Good drag queens can read an audience to hell and back and make them love it and laugh uproariously - Pearle is walking a more dangerous line without the advantage of an audience of enthusiastic, and intoxicated, gay men already in on the joke. Her accompanist/assistant Brother Gantry (Steven Conway) is comically besotted, but Pearle is operating on a higher plane, she'll seduce us when we exit into the gift shop.

This is the third time the Chautauqua tent has blown into our fair city, and though I talked to Pearle before her first Chautauqua and attended her Sunday School, I was unprepared for the intensity of her comic vision as created by a small army of minions: director Byron Laviolette, production designer Joseph Pagnan, lighting designer Jareth Li (who, very oddly, didn't provide the follow spot that Pearle so blatantly craves), tentmaker Haley Reap and puppet maker Jess Byiers who allowed moi a Ronnie Burkett/Shari Lewis fantasy for a few brief seconds before my fingers cramped from over-enthusiasm.

And though it won't make any sense until you too experience the magic and mayhem of the pearls of wisdom of Pearle, we all left wanting to be mountain people. Pearle Harbour's Chautauqua is a very inspiring house.

Does life seem nasty, brutish and short
Come on up to the house
The seas are stormy and you can't find no port
Got to come on up to the house, yeah