Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, Theatre Building.
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Charles Busch’s campy comedy, a raunchy collage of ancient and modern mythic kitsch, is a showcase for hilarious drag clowning and ingenious visual design under Doug-las L. Hartzell’s direction. It tells of two blood-sucking bisexuals whose misadventures span millennia. Their first meeting, in pagan Sodom and Gomorrah (“the Twin Cities”), joins them in an unholy rivalry for concubines and corpuscles; eventually the pair land in 1920s Hollywood, where as La Condessa and Madeleine Astarte they become the silver screen’s most famous feuding divas, and then in 1970s Vegas, where Astarte (now an Ann-Margret-style stage star) helps La Condessa (now a cleaning lady) make her comeback.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Russell McGonagle.
