Madonna’s Drag Queen Christmas Celebration

What’s better to get you into the Christmas spirit than a hefty drag queen dressed as the mother of Jesus parodying both, Top 40 pop hits by stars like Laddy Gaga and Madonna and age-old Biblical stories by The Holy Spirit? Seriously: What’s better? Nothing at all.

After seeing Madonna’s Christmas Celebration, created by drag artist Mimi Imfurt and composer Mike Pettry, I’m now ready to set up my Christmas tree, send an e-card to my grandma, and head to the mall to further ruin my credit in order to impress those people I talk to once or twice a year. If a holiday show does not make you want to do that, then it is absolutely worthless.

Fortunately, Mimi Imfurt’s show did it. I must confess, at first I thought it was going to be terrible. Here’s why: though I had the correct address, I had trouble finding Finn’s Funhouse in San Francisco. I was expecting to see a sign of the place, but the theatre space literally looks like a house. Also, the room were Imfurst performed was cozy but very small. Some performers make small spaces work to their advantage, some do better with a bigger audience.

I was starting to get a bad feeling. It didn’t look professional enough. Then Imfurst came out dressed as the Virgin Mary. The actual costume was spotless and bright, very nice. She started singing and her voice wasn’t the most polished, neither was the choreography or the music. Half-ass was the first word that came to mind.

And yet within 5 minutes I was laughing out loud. And within 10 minutes I was totally into the show, paying attention, clapping and singing along. Madonna’s live performance mashup of biblical oral storytelling with a lewd twist, randomly-inserted jokes, and devil-may-care dance moves had won me over.

Not to mention the songs. She sang stuff from The Black Eyed Peas, Beyonce, Lady GaGa, Katy Perry, Rihanna and Madonna, to name a few. That unpolished delivery I had disdained at first became a virtue: it was intended. The whole show had an intended post-modern edge. Anachronism, irony, self-parody and spoofs abounded.

It’s been a couple of days since I saw it and I still have a couple of the songs stuck in my head. That’s always a good thing. In terms of the size of the place, Imfurst also worked that to her advantage. The audience was heavily involved towards the end. In fact, a man was invited to go onstage and given a microphone to sing with Madonna (or Lady Mama, as some reportedly call her).

There was a sense of community when the whole audience was singing together: “My God is an awesome God, lah, lah, lah.” Delivered ironically or straight, that’s what Christmas is all about! I recommend that you go see the show. Mimi Imfurst has performances in Maine, Washington D.C. and New York coming up. Her website is virginmarylive.com.