Tell-Tale

Tell-tale Tell-tale. By Erik Jackson. Theatre Couture. Performance Space 122, New York City. 14 June 1997.

Drag theatre is alive and well in New York City, as demonstrated by Tell-Tale, Theatre Couture's current offering at Performance Space 122. Under the artistic direction of performer Sherry Vine (a.k.a. Keith Levy), Theatre Couture has just celebrated its fifth anniversary with this camp treatment of film noir conventions. Previous efforts, all featuring Sherry Vine and female drag performance, have included The Bad Weed '73, e.s.p.-eyes of a supermodel psychic, The Final Feast of Lucrezia Borgia, Charlie, and Kitty Killer! The last two also originated at P.S. 122.

Tell-Tale's convoluted plot concerns wealthy, best-selling author Lenore Usher (Sherry Vine), an agoraphobic divorcee nursing her many neuroses in a plush Manhattan apartment. Her sinister housekeeper, Cora Tripetta (drag artist Jackie Beat) is having an affair with Lenore's ex-husband and plans to kill her and run off with her money. The ensemble is rounded off with Mario Diaz, who plays all the men. As the story develops, the characters become involved in nefarious schemes, double-crosses, triple-crosses, poisonings, and body dismemberments. By the final curtain, there are several dead bodies, including a pet raven named "Poe," with a nod to Edgar Allan and The Tell-Tale Heart. But playwright Erik Jackson's script shows more affinity to the frenzied melodrama of Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls than the Gothic ambience of Poe's short stories. And while the...