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Neon Boots partners RodneyMyers, Jim Gerhold, Debbie Diane,

Jim Moore & Jim Daily meetingafter a day of construction

on the club

A view of the dance floor from thetwo-tier level stage

Jim Gerhold paints the newlyadded Esquire Room in honor of

the former ballroom

Keeping with the Texas theme, thetwo wings on the dance floor side

have been painted red & blue

Owners Rodney Myers, DebbieDiane, Jim Gerhold, Jim Daily, Jim

Moore & Robert Harwood GMRobert Harwood

New cedar walls greet those whoenter the club

Parking-a-plenty, unlike manyother Houston gay bars, parking

will not be an issue here

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Neon Boots Slated toOpen in August

Neon Boots Dancehall & Saloon,11410 Hempstead Hwy, in Houston, is slatedto open the first or second weekend ofAugust. This all depends on when the Stateof Texas (TABC) signs-off on all permits.

According to Partner Jim Daily, "Withthe closing of the BRB over three monthsago, a huge void was created in the LGBTcommunity for both me and my many BRBfriends. The many patrons of the BRB (andI was one for over 25 years) were suddenlywithout their country and western dancehome. I missed seeing my friends, I misseddancing, and I missed my favorite bartend-ers. It was clear we needed a new home!"

"The partners of Neon Boots are nottrying to recreate another BRB – we are agroup of strong-willed individuals deter-mined to get our Country & Western dance-friends reunited back into a fitting newhome." said Partner Debbie Diane.

Partner Rodney Myers tells us, "TheNeon Boots venue, once known as theEsquire Ballroom, is filled with a rich historyof local Houston bands and famous Coun-try and Western entertainers - Patsy Cline,Willie Nelson, Charlie Pride, George Jones,Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynne, Jim Reevesand Ray Price along with many others.Thinking about Patsy Cline singing 'I Fall toPieces' on that very stage gives me goosebumps thinking about it."

Partner Ron McLeroy added, "Theclub is over 10,000 square feet, with a largedance floor and plenty of free parking avail-able in the lot. It’s located just outside loop610, only about 7 miles from the heart of theMontrose. You don’t even need to get onthe freeway from Montrose to reach us. Youcan take Washington Avenue to HempsteadHighway and be to Neon Boots in no timeat all. To insure that we maintain adequatesecurity in our parking lot, we will have golf-cart personnel continuously circulatingthroughout the lot during our busy weekendbusiness hours."

The Grand Opening is expected sometimein early August. Until then, please visitwww.neonbootsclub.com or Facebook pagewww.facebook.com/NeonBootsClub to get up-dates on the progress and official opening date.

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trodding the boards

by Brian Sands Email: bsnola2@hotmail.com

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare(Abridged) at Tulane’s Lab Theatre/McWilliamsHall through July 17

With Kiss Me, Kate opening in a few weeks at Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre, thosewanting to “brush up their Shakespeare,” ought to head in that direction for The NewOrleans Shakespeare Festival’s production of The Complete Works of WilliamShakespeare (Abridged). In fact, even if you’re not planning to partake of Cole Porter’sclassic musical but just want some transporting midsummer divertissement, get thee toTulane’s McWilliams Hall.

[continued on 34]

With wryly satiric humor, CompleteWorks serves up, in one form or another, all37 of Shakespeare’s plays (38, if you countTwo Noble Kinsmen), plus some sonnets,in about 100 minutes. The comedies andhistories are given rather short shrift—understandably as the tragedies are easierand more fun to parody (Picture TitusAndronicus with its cannibal pies done as

a cooking program). Three actors (BrendanBowen, Clint Johnson, Andrew Vaught)play all the roles, switching gender andages at a moment’s notice.

Written by Adam Long, Daniel Singer,and Jess Winfield, Complete Works wasfirst performed at the Edinburgh Fringe

My own marriage history is rathersketchy, for the most part. I “married” often,not well and my “husbands” were as cute asthey were useless ...as a rule. It took yearsfor me to realize I was better suited forboyfriends, not husbands.

Secondly, a big congratulations to TamiTarmac and Venus Santiago, SouthernDecadence Grand Marshals XXXIX. It willbe a long, hot summer, but have fun andenjoy.

Deciding what movie to review waskinda tough this week. Even with Brad Pitt,“World War Z” seemed a bit much ...too hotfor zombies. According to some friends whoreally enjoy this genre of film, there will bea sequel, so I think I will wait and catch themback-to-back. I really enjoyed “Olympus IsDown” last spring and “White House Down”has the same premise, so I decided maybenot. Most reviewers agree “Olympus” wasthe better of the two. So I found myself at“The Heat,” mid-afternoon on a bright sum-mer day. It was a very good decision.

“The Heat” is a buddy cop comedy fullof action and adventure. The twist beingthe cops are female. Sandra Bullock is FBISpecial Agent Sarah Ashburn and MelissaMcCarthy is Boston Detective ShannonMullins. The plot is simple...take down aRussian mobster/drug lord. The movie wasoriginally set in New York City, but thank-fully was moved to Boston...but it is no big-screen “Rizzoli and Isles.” Melissa McCarthyis over-the -top funny and she plays well offSandra Bullock. McCarthy brings a brand

of physical comedy to the movie screen Ihaven’t seen in awhile.

The movie starts with the usual “terri-torial issue” of whose case it is ...Boston PDor the FBI. Ashburn (Bullock) is bucking fora promotion and is told to work with thelocals. Mullins (McCarthy) is like no streetcop I have ever seen. Wait until you see herrefrigerator and her interrogation tech-niques. Men will truly grab their testicles.

Adding spice to the movie is the Mullin’sfamily ...they are hilarious. Mom (JaneCurtin), Pop, three brothers, including Ja-son (Michael Rapaport), and their girl-friends. Jason is actually involved in thedrug business, but no spoiler alert here.Shannon (McCarthy) is on the outs with thefamily for having Jason put in jail, but thattakes care of itself. Do not miss the sceneat the dinner table when “narc” is passedaround.

The drunk scene in the bar is funny, butthe “real” drunk scene is a hoot ...strippermusic from the MRB and the Corner Pocket,circa the 1990s.

Some people say “The Heat” is aformula movie, and they might be right, butit is funny and very entertaining. It wasdirected by Paul Feig and produced byPeter Chernin and Jenno Topping. It is thefirst screenplay from Katie Dippold (Parksand Recreation). With a budget of $43million it grossed $40 million the first week-end. It was filmed in Boston and distributed

reVIEW...books, movies, cds

by BlancheEmail: ambushreview@aol.comPhoto by Larry Graham, GrahamStudioOne.COM

THE HEAT ...90 degrees ...95% humidity...100% funny

First things first, congratulations to Rip and Marsha and all my married sisters/sistersand brothers/brothers.”The Supremes,” sitting on the bench in Washington, DC, did wellon their decisions concerning DOMA and Proposition 8. Let’s just hope they didn’t screwup changing part of the voting rights act in Shelby County vs. Holder. We need to moveforward, not backward.

[continued on 33]

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reVIEW ...from 32by 20th Century Fox. It’s right at two hourslong and rated R. It is the perfect summermovie ...sit back in a cool theatre and enjoy.

A CommentThere are some things I don’t

understand...and I have watched the sun

rise more than once at Le Roundup, sittingbetween the late, great Miss Do and BigRegina, amazingly understanding the con-versation ...so I’m not totally dense.

How does LIFETIME keep makingthese terrible movies? They butchered aremake of “Steel Magnolias” in 2012, and“Liz and Dick” was embarrassing. Now wehave “Jodi Arias-Dirty Little Secret” and“Anna Nicole” ...and I liked Anna Nicole and

thought Agnes Bruckner was great in thetitle role. Have all the good screenwritersleft Hollywood? Coming soon we have aremake of “Bonnie and Clyde”.

Even being made-for-tv movies, youwant to give them a chance, but so far“Betty and Coretta”, back in February is theonly one that I want to see again. Justasking...

Next AmbushDEADLINE

Tueday, July 16th504.522.8049

marsha@ripandmarsha.com

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Festival in 1987 and went on to play from1996 till 2005 in the West End where I firstsaw it in 2001.

Complete Works is one of those en-tertainments, like Godspell, that gives itsdirector and cast wide latitude to interpretthe script. Ad libs, local references, jokesripped from the headlines are all encour-aged. So now, not only is texting men-tioned, but Roger Goodell and The NOLAProject get shout-outs; Vaught starts hum-ming I Dreamed A Dream at the mention ofShakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway (if youdon’t understand that allusion, this may notbe the show for you); and best of all was anewly-inserted gag about Othello and PaulaDean who had just cancelled her Todayappearance. Talk about up-to-the-minute!

Director Carl Walker, equally at homewith comedies, dramas and musicals,squeezes every bit of manic merriment outof Works by imparting a galloping lunacy toit, but wisely gives his cast free reign toallow for a fizzy spontaneity.

Gleefully indulging in slapstick anddeliciously overacting, Bowen, Johnson,and Vaught seem to be having a blast andwere already working like a well-oiled ma-chine at their first performance. All areaccomplished Shakespeareans but, otherthan Vaught, I hadn’t yet been exposed totheir comic chops.

Johnson, who regularly spews confetti“vomit” on audience members, and Vaughtdon wigs to look like Anna Magnani and afifth Beatle, respectively, for the zanyRomeo and Juliet send-up that opens theshow. In their version of Hamlet that takesup the second act, more Lion King thanOlivier, Bowen’s Great Dane, upon themention of “Mother” and “Father”, casuallybut keenly gestured stage left where hisreal-life parents, Clare Moncrief and DannyBowen, were sitting in the audience. Nice.

If you’re lucky (or not) you might evenfind yourself a featured Player in The Com-plete Works; at the performance I attended,the sight of Steppin’ Out critic Alan Smasonrunning back and forth, arms waving in theair was worth the price of admission. Yet itis to Shakespeare’s and the Abridgedfolks’ credit that, done straight, Hamlet’s“What a piece of work is a man!” speechheld the audience in rapt attention.

To go or not to go to The CompleteWorks of William Shakespeare(Abridged)? To go forsooth!

Upstairsat Café Istanbul

One can certainly admire Wayne Selffor writing a musical about the 1973 fire atthe Upstairs Lounge, the deadliest in NewOrleans’ history, which claimed 32 lives. Itmay have taken forty years, but Upstairsserved as a vital catalyst for getting trulywidespread recognition of this tragic eventthat not even all locals knew the details of.Though I had seen Skylar Fein’s monu-mental installation about the UpstairsLounge fire during Prospect.1, I hadn’tknown the exact location of the Loungeeven though I had passed by it a gazilliontimes. I do now.

In attempting to make sense from thesenseless, Upstairs is grandly ambitious.I wish I could say it was wholly successful.Yet its approach is a frustrating and, attimes, confusing one, generating more heatthan light.

It is generally acknowledged that thefire was started by a hustler who had beenkicked out of the bar earlier that day. He wasmad and seemed to want to do some harmbut, as related by Fein and historian ClayDelery during a fascinating lecture at theHistoric New Orleans Collection (HNOC), itdoesn’t appear as though he intended to kill32 people.

Fire trucks arrived 2 minutes after theywere called but, due to the building’s struc-ture, the fire spread incredibly quickly andbars on the windows trapped patrons in-side. While it could be argued that such aterrible result could only have happened ata gay bar at that time, it would be difficult todescribe this as a hate crime.

The more unique tragedy of the Up-stairs Lounge fire occurred after the initialevent when, with few exceptions, the localmedia, political figures and religious lead-ers virtually ignored what happened in away undoubtedly different from what theirresponse would have been had this takenplace at a straight establishment. Familieswere ashamed of loved ones who were lostin the blaze, funeral homes and churchesavoided doing what they should, bodieswent unclaimed.

One can easily envision a musical,perhaps operatic in scope, that focuses onthe people and the quotidian events theywere involved in leading up to the fire; theconflagration would seem to be a naturalfirst act finale. The second act could thenconcentrate on the callous, homophobicresponse and how it lead, in part, to the startof a new era in GLBT history in NewOrleans.

Self chooses a different approach. Hisbook jumps back and forth. Scenes imme-diately prior to the fire, during which abenefit for the Metropolitan CommunityChurch is being planned at the bar, alter-nate with others a year later in which Buddy,the Upstairs Lounge’s heroic bartenderwho saved many patrons by leading themdown a back staircase, confronts the hus-tler Agneau. They had both been involvedwith a guy who perished in the fire; in thecourse of this conversation, Agneau admitsto starting the fire and ultimately commitssuicide.

I suppose such a structure could workeven if it omits the shockingly insensitivecitywide response. Yet unless you alreadyknew what Upstairs is about (and eventhen), the first few Buddy/Agneau sceneslack a necessary dramatic linkage to the firebecause that has not yet occurred on-stage. Perhaps it was Self’s intention forthe connection to be somewhat mysteriousbut it just comes off as murky as Agneau’ssong If I Could Only Breathe reveals moreabout him than we’re ready to absorb.

There are other problematic things inSelf’s libretto. Agneau emerges as the mostfully developed character. Though I could’vedone without his maleficent uncle whohaunts his subconscious, we feel Agneau’sdesperate conflict about his sexuality andthe crime he committed. None of the othercharacters register this much depth so weare confronted with the ironic situation wherethe putative villain is a more compellingfigure than anyone else on stage. This isnot unheard of (see Richard III) but thisdoesn’t seem to be the most appropriatestory for something like that.

Self bravely makes the other denizensof the bar a mixed bag of good and not-so-good types as would likely be found at anysimilar establishment. But he fails to fullyflesh out their individualistic humanity, es-

pecially Buddy’s boyfriend Adam, a prig-gish, snobby and duplicitous type, andInez, who tries to pimp out her son (picturesomeone just slightly better than the motherin Precious). When they perish in the fire,at the risk of sounding really bitchy, I wasn’ttoo sorry to see them go. And the ghostlychoir that appeared towards the end to urgeforgiveness was simply bizarre and out ofplace.

That Self the librettist lets down Selfthe songwriter is a shame as he has a knackfor both words and music. I especially likedInez’ Favorite Son but it seemed to comefrom another show as the rest of what wesaw of the character didn’t really mesh withits lyrics. And the placement of certainnumbers, such as the drag queen Mercy’sTestify at the end of the first act, thoughrousing, made little dramaturgical sense.

Director Zach McCallum deserves agood deal of the blame. Birthing a newmusical is one of the greatest challenges intheater. (I should know as I’ve gone throughthe process twice and can well appreciateLarry Gelbart’s reputed quip, “If Hitler’s stillalive, I hope he’s out of town with a musi-cal.”) McCallum, a previous collaborativepartner of Self, should’ve brought a moreobjective eye to the script and helped Selfto clarify the material.

In addition, McCallum’s staging waslackluster; Upstairs featured the most staticopening number I’ve ever seen. At othertimes, as in A Good Man Is Hard To Find(But He’ll Do) which dealt with variousromantic complications, too much was go-ing on. Scenes tended to end with a whim-per when a “bang” was called for.

Granted, the Café Istanbul stage issmall and cramped but McCallum, alongwith set designer Edward R. Cox, could’vecome up with more imaginative ways to useit. And unlike Alison Parker and Kate Adair’speriod-appropriate costumes, for some rea-son Cox omitted that era’s Burt Reynoldsand Mark Spitz posters that were organicparts of the Upstairs Lounge’s atmosphere.

The cast was a mixed bag. As Agneau,Alexander Jon had the best material to workwith and masterfully created a characterwith flesh-and-blood humanity. As he tenta-tively reached out to another person, it waswrenching to see how painful it must’vebeen for him to live in his own skin.

Garrett Marshall made Buddy a fine,likable and caring person who’s trying togain closure on his horrific experiences; healso even resembled the real-life Buddy. Ashe wishfully and repeatedly avers “I could’vesaved another,” he began to sound like alater-day Schindler; nothing wrong withthat but it’s become a bit cliched. JeffRoberson’s Mercy was real as could be andlit up the stage whenever she came on.

As for the rest, although they hadparticipated in a workshop earlier this yearin San Francisco, where they reside, itseems to me their roles could easily havebeen filled with local actors who might’vebeen able to bring local shadings to thecharacters.

I wish I could’ve been more enthusias-tic about Upstairs as my colleague FrankPerez and editors Rip and Marsha Naquin-Delain did a tremendous amount of work tosupport and promote the show which paidoff in full houses, a donation of over $2,500to the HNOC (the proceeds from the LGBTCommemoration Ceremonies) and, mostimportant, a widening acknowledgment ofthe victims and the immensity of this terribleevent. I do hope, however, that Self will takea critical look at his work, a step that is part

of the creative process, and refine it in away that will do full justice to all the victimsof this tragedy. They deserve no less.

Trodding aroundEastern Europe, Part II

While Vienna’s Life Ball (see last Is-sue for details) was the undisputed high-light of a recent trip through Eastern Eu-rope, there were certainly other memorableexperiences as well.

In Prague, I was able to see a concertversion (with English surtitles) ofStravinsky’s Persephone at the State Op-era House, a beautiful rococo building fromthe 1880s. This little known work for or-chestra, dramatic actress, tenor, chorusand children’s chorus tells the story of thedaughter of the god Zeus and the goddessDemeter who descends to the Underworld,marries Hades, but then annually returns toEarth to bring us Spring.

Jirí Štrunc conducted a nuanced, dra-matically charged account of this gloriousyet accessible music that led to an existen-tially hopeful conclusion. As the priestEumolphe, Philippe Do’s shimmering, pli-ant voice floated notes above the orchestrawith a compelling urgency.

Yet the star of the show was SonaCervená whose vibrant speaking voicebelies her 87 years and convinces you thatthis is what a goddess would sound like. Ina magnificent performance, she broughtout the many emotional shades ofPersephone—desire, pity, happiness, etc—endowing her with strength and maturity.Regal yet humane, Cervená is one of thoserare talents whose artistry erases decadesfrom her age.

While Persephone, unfortunately, isnot on next season’s schedule, if you hap-pen to be in Prague next Fall, do not missone of the five performances of TheMakropulos Case also starring Cervená(Oct. 14 & 26, Nov. 16, Dec. 4 & 26).Directed by Robert Wilson, it is one of thegreatest productions I have ever seen in mylife. And, as a bonus, it’s performed at TheEstates Theatre where Mozart’s DonGiovanni had its world premiere and partsof Amadeus were filmed..

If, however, you’ll be in Prague beforethe end of this month, be sure to check outIvan Lendl:Alfons Mucha at the Obecnídum (Municipal House), the first showing oftennis great Lendl’s collection of nearlyevery poster Mucha created.

Fans of art nouveau will be in heavenseeing the full extent of Mucha’s work fromhis posters for Sarah Bernhardt, which firstbrought him widespread attention, throughhis commercial designs, and, finally, im-ages that championed his homeland ofBohemia.

Apparently, Lendl, who has homes inFlorida and Connecticut, didn’t want hiscollection to “languish at home all alone”while he was away. As a film that’s part ofthe exhibit makes clear, it was an epicoperation to get it packed up and shippedto the Czech capital. There’s talk that theshow may come to New York, but if you cansee it in its homeland, how cool is that?

Back in the Austrian capital, I finally gotto go to The Albertina, home to one of thelargest and most important print collectionsin the world. The last time I was in Vienna,it was closed for renovations; the job’s nowfinished and the museum is state-of-the-art.

trodding the boards...from 32

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