Week of November 28, 2007, Issue #632
COVER
You know it’s hard out here for a bitch
DAVID BERRY / david@vueweekly.com
‘The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”—Bette DavisThere’s only a few of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford’s poisonously bitchy quotes about each other that Darrin Hagen didn’t manage to slip in to his script for BitchSlap!, but that’s one of them. It’s the experience of making Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, though, that Hagen largely focuses on for his story of the legendary feud between the two actresses, and that quote gives some idea of just how mercurial was the relationship between two of the definitive actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age, whether or not they had to share a soundstage.
However at odds Davis and Crawford were, Hagen and Trevor Schmidt, the two who are tasked with bringing this cat fight to fully clawed life as Crawford and Davis, respectively, seem just as close. Sitting in the basement of the Third Space in between rehearsals for last weekend’s Loud N Queer Cabaret—just one of the umpteen projects the duo have work ed on together, from Guys in Disguise productions like Neo Nancies: Hitler’s Kickline to the annual Urban Tales show, produced by Scmidt’s Northern Light Theatre—the two get along fabulously, trading good-natured barbs and laughs almost as often as actually answering questions.
As well as they get along now, though—and they must, if for no other reason than they’ve spent a decent chunk of time since BitchSlap! first debuted at the 2005 Fringe touring the show together with Davina Stewart, who plays gossip columnist Hedda Hopper—things weren’t always so splendid between the pair. Though they never quite reached the acid-spitting of Crawford vs Davis—surely at least in part because no one was shoving a tape recorder in their faces when they were both struggling actors—as Schmidt explains, the first time he and Hagen worked together, the only thing keeping them from pushing each other down the stairs was that there weren’t any around.
“I’d love to be able to say nasty things about Darrin now; it would make for such great press,” Schmidt says in a caustically dry manner not at all out of place for a man set to play Bette Davis.
“The truth is, though, when we first worked together, we did not get on at all,” says Schmidt of their initial experience working on Times Square Angel, more than 15 years ago. “He was really loud and political, and I was just not having it at all.”
“We just had very different outlooks at the time,” agrees Hagen. “Trevor was, I think, a bit more in the closet at the time, or at least more low key, and I was a drag queen: my closet was full of dresses, there was no room for me.”
According to both, that acrimonious relationship persisted until Hagen and Chris Craddock offered Schmidt a part in Li’l Orphan Tranny, an offer Schmidt was initially reluctant to accept.
“I wanted to work with Guys in Disguise, but I honestly wasn’t sure if Darren and I would be able to get along,” explains Schmidt. “I literally remember telling a friend of mine at the time that I was just going to grit my teeth and take the money, because I knew it was going to be a money-maker, and I needed it. Then, of course, we had a blast working together, and at this point I’d work with him at the drop of a hat, pretty much.”
While both can joke pretty freely about their past, for Hagen that experience is just one of the aspects that makes playing Crawford and Davis so natural for the duo. As he explains, in many ways their portrayals go much deeper than simply the drag costumes they spend more than an hour getting into each night of the show.
“I actually do a fairly mean Bette Davis, so when I first called Trevor, he assumed I’d be doing Bette and he’d be doing Joan,” explains Hagen. “Now, [the roles are reversed] partly because I have the shoulders for Joan, but it was partly because there’s a fascinating correlation between Trevor Schmidt and Bette Davis and Darrin Hagen and Joan Collins. That is, Bette Davis called herself an actress, whereas Joan Collins was a movie star. Trevor is a very well-respected actor in this town, where I was a drag queen who got famous and then started to act.
“I found I really related to the Joan Crawford role, because—,” Hagen continues, before Schmidt slyly interrupts: “He slept his way to the top.”
“I wish it was that easy!” responds Hagen with a boisterous, room-filling laugh. “Well, no, what really mattered with Joan was what people thought about her public persona, and it was very carefully crafted. That’s what being a drag queen is all about: you create a character that’s not real, and Gloria takes all the flak, and Gloria gets all the praise. The differences between Trevor and myself are the same as the differences between Bette and Joan. You are Bette Davis: you’re brilliant, you’re neurotic, you’re self-obsessed—and I say that all with love—and that’s what Bette Davis was. And I am Joan Crawford—I totally am: I love to be beautiful, I love to be famous.”
While their personal history certainly helps them relate to the story, it also doesn’t hurt that Davis and Crawford are already gay and drag icons; when asked what first attracted him to the story, Hagen very dryly replies, “Well, I am a fag—I mean, I don’t know if you know this or not, but I am a gay man.” Besides being a gay man, though, he also has a few theories about why women like Crawford and Davis have such broad homosexual appeal.
“People ask why gay men love those women so much, and the reason is that in the ’40s, when there was no such thing as gay rights, or at least they weren’t very visible, people like Bette and Joan became the politicians in gay mens’ minds,” says Hagen, ably transitioning, as he frequently does in both person and script, from ribald outrageousness to sedate cogency. “They were the strong, feminine creatures, they got the man they got the gigs, they got everything.”
“I’ve got nothing against gay rights, there’s just nothing in it for me,” paraphrases Schmidt, joined by Hagen for the last bit.
“It goes beyond that, too,” continues Hagen. “They were men in dresses, in a lot of ways, because they fought like men, they didn’t take any shit like men, they basically played a game that very few women were willing to play; they’d risk everything to keep their career going. “
Hagen inadvertently brings up a good point with that assessment: as much as he’s become synonymous with drag shows in Edmonton, a show like BitchSlap! seems to take on an entirely different element when there’s more underneath the dresses than just sunshine. After all, it was Bette Davis herself who said, “When a man gives his opinion he’s a man. When a woman gives her opinion she's a bitch”: this is, in many ways, a story about women who aren’t afraid to assert their power, and it seems that having men play those roles changes things a bit, doesn’t it?
“I never think about that when I do a drag show,” admits Hagen. “To me I’m just playing a character.
“Actually, you know, there was a moment in Orlando where some reviewer called us two fabulous drag queens, or something like that,” continues Hagen, “and Trevor was amused but slightly offended, and I had to convince him they meant it as a compliment.”
“Well, I’m not a drag queen, I’m an actor who happens to be playing a woman,” explains Schmidt. “I think that kind of works to our advantage, though: people come in expecting some sort of outrageous drag show, and it’s actually just a play that’s about how these two women relate to each other. They had an awful lot in common to be at each other’s throats their entire lives, and I think we suggest some of that.
“Plus,” says Schmidt after a brief pause, “we get to say some fantastic insults.” V
Thu, Nov 29 - Sun, Dec 9 (8 pm)
BitchSlap!
Directed by Trevor Schmidt
Written by Darin Hagen
Starring Hagen, Schmidt, Davina Stewart
Roxy Theatre (10708 - 124 st), $15 - $25