The Late Great Mormon Drag Queen

Postcard Review by Caroline Russell-King

Show – The Late Great Mormon Drag Show

Playwright/s – Steven Morton

Production Company/Theatre space – Steven Morton / Festival Hall, The Calgary Fringe Festival.

Length – 1 Act  60 mins (no intermission)

Genre/s – Musical Drama

Premise –After unsuccessfully proselytizing in Hawaii, shy insecure Morris, the 15^th son of the Morman prophet, wants to stand out from his 57 siblings, marries and runs a sweet shop but only finds confidence when he performs on stage as Madame Pattirini.

Why this play? Why now? – This re-confirms that drag happened historically in every culture.

Curiosities – Is the content advisory for “religious content” supposed to be a trigger warning for atheists or those who have been harmed by Mormonism? Is “drag” a content advisory warning for homophobes? Do they even go to these shows? Who needs a content advisory for “Solo Performance”? Surely trigger warnings should be optional for the purchaser before POS but not part of general marketing. Did I miss the patter song?

Notable Moment – The curtain call.

Notable writing – Bravo to Steven Morton for writing a show and not a tell. This is a more mature style of writing than many other Fringe solo shows on historic characters. ‘The shy man who can hide behind a painted face and a frock to express themselves as a performer and extrovert’ is not a new subject. What makes this story unique is that this man is the son of the Mormon prophet, but here the story is weak. At the end of the show, he reveals his secret to his family, but we never got to see the lengths he goes to hide it, nor do we have any stakes or consequences of what might have been seen as abhorrent behavior. Everyone is fine with it, so the show settles for internal rather than interpersonal conflict which is less dynamic. Morris’ two children die, but when his third son, Joesph, is badly burnt he believes this might be a message of displeasure from god, but this is quickly dispelled by an elder and all is good. This was a script written by a Morris that needed a Pattirini hand.

Notable performances – Morton is a talented singer and, unlike Morris, assured in his abilities.

Notable design/Production – Understandably we lose the glamour & theatrics of modern drag.

Notable direction – The challenge here is the multiple behind curtain costume changes with no one on stage but he makes it work.

 One reason to see this show – Fun, family friendly, Fringe show.