Wild side story

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Logo , 2001

Wild Side Story is a parodic musical , the 1973 travesty -Show in the gay scene of Miami Beach has arisen and in semi-professional and commercial performances in Florida , Sweden , California and Spain was shown.

background

The first line-up in 1973
Christer Lindarw and Ulla Jones Leader of the Pack 1976
Helena Mattsson and Mohombi in an ensemble of the piece in 2002

The producer, author and director of entertainment shows Lars Jacob (birth name: Lars Ridderstedt; today's official name: Jacob Truedson Demitz), who comes from a Swedish - American family of musicians, went to Florida at the age of 22 and also worked as a DJ. Together with young Cuban refugees from the Miami Beach transvestite scene, he developed a musical that was a camp- style parody of the West Side story , but also used independent elements.

In 1975 Lars Jacob traveled back to Sweden to produce shows for one of the earliest nightclubs in Stockholm, introducing the travesty shows in Sweden. In 1976 he brought his Wild Side Story to the stage there. Lars Jacobs position at the famous Alexandra Charles Club gave him the opportunity to make a lasting impact on some genres in Swedish entertainment. In 1976 he went back to the USA and worked at The Beverly Hills Hotel . On the side he built up an underground ensemble that played the Wild Side Story with some adaptations to the Californian culture, irregularly and on changing stages between 1977 and the early 1980s.

By 2004, the parody was performed more than 500 times in Florida, Stockholm, Los Angeles, and Spain. Pieces from Wild Side Story have been shown by CabarEng in Stockholm in recent years in cabarets such as CaCa Bleu (2009-2010) and ÄngelCab (2013), even though the ensemble was on tour in the USA with Cabaret Large A-Cup (2011) . For the 40th anniversary of the show, it was played again in 2013 in Stockholm's old town .

layout

Initially all songs were played back via playback , later individual combinations of playback, live singing and sound recordings were arranged. This means that the actors almost exclusively played their roles lip-synchro- nized to songs from the PA system throughout the hour-long show. Exaggerated lip and tongue movements increase the satirical treatment of the original recordings used, which contribute to the plot.

The actors were usually amateurs from the respective scene who were on stage for the first time. In Los Angeles and in later Swedish performances, the piece was played with a professional cast and with appropriate stage equipment and technology.

Three of the nine roles require male actors to play exaggerated drag queens . Since 1976 three of the roles have also been filled with real women. One of these women is playing a drag king . When the audience has almost got used to the continuous playback, Tony suddenly sings his own live version of the song Maria .

Effects such as loud legs rocking in America , strobe lights and cries in the street fight catastrophic Rumble and occasional projections of both slides and Super 8 film , complete the multimedia experience.

Costumes that were specially designed and sewn in 1976 by Maria Knutsson from the famous Swedish boutique Gul & Blå are used throughout, as is the same body language that the director developed in the young Cubans back in 1972 is for large part still included.

Parodies

America 1977 in Los Angeles
Somewhere 1979 in Los Angeles

Wild Side Story is a parody, especially the main subject of the suicidal Romeo and Juliet . About half of the music comes from the classic musical West Side Story, with multiple versions featuring instrumentals and comedic performances.

Other songs, among others by Bette Midler , La Lupe , Elvis Presley , Marilyn Monroe , Lou Reed , Alma Cogan and Peggy Lee , as well as piquant comments from Mae West movie scenes, are also important parts of the humorous piece. The finale includes a Las Vegas performance by Diana Ross with Somewhere , in which she quotes Doctor Martin Luther King and his dream, while slot machines make huge bucks for the hotel. School dances, sexual and other stereotypes , senseless violence, lovesick carelessness and drunkenness, as well as the kind of comedy of errors by Oscar Wilde , for example, are parodied.

action

The main character, José Maria González, skillfully disguises himself as a woman in an attempt to get a job on a drag show so that Tony falls in love with him / her, creating a comical mess and an opportunity for the cast, a hearty Romeo -and-Julia-Satire. Competing for this job, and creating a subplot, are the two Puerto Rican drag queens Consuelo and Obvióla, who make the misunderstood star 's life in New York City even more miserable while Tony stumbles through the streets and sings (when there are Germans in the audience): "Mary, although everything is beautifully raised, is not raised so much above ...".

In the course of the plot, Maria's brother Bernardo, Tony himself and his dumped girlfriend Betty-Sue (invented for the Wild Side Story) are killed. However, they are all brought back to life for a "carefree ending after a soul goddess " calls on the spirit of Doctor King (see above).

reception

Members of the 1974 Ensemble on tour in Tampa

Two previously unknown young Cuban men were so compelling as women in the first cast that a reputable Miami magazine printed a cover story about them as "Women who look like women and smell like women and wear ruffles and satin and lace ... two such devoted hearts are shown here to show off the latest feminine fashions for real women ”. The eventual success of the first show was described by eyewitnesses as "a huge hit ... Florida's big names for men in female roles played their bizarre roles in this bizarre story until the audience screamed".

Lars Jacobs' first cabaret, AlexCab, was already successful in Stockholm in autumn 1975 , where American-style drag pieces were performed for the first time in Sweden, so that the well-known critic Sten Hedman called the Wild Side Story in 1976 the "best show in town. . called decadent, fun, exciting, talented ”, with Christer Lindarw, who will soon be famous in Sweden, almost prophetically named as the best actor on the show. From the big newspapers like Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet came over such a completely new phenomenon as Wild Side Story, reviews that seem a little perplexed. The latter had the American Steve Vigil (who saw the Wild Side Story in Florida in the lead role), as well as Ulla Jones and Agneta Lindén, for charisma and know-how , which were particularly highlighted by the critics.

A few years later in Los Angeles, journalist Michael Kearns dubbed his review of the show "the talk of the town," adding, "the most extraordinary thing you've ever seen." A local gay magazine called it “fun, cheesy evening entertainment”, also “the cast is lively and Jacob's direction is fast moving ... a dashing Tony ... a beautiful, touching, delicate Maria ...” and the two drag queens “der rampant part of the show ”.

In Spain 2000

Back in Stockholm in 1997, there were reviews like “a totally wild evening”, “a hilarious parody, an inspiring show full of ingenuity, an absolute hysterical”, and in Spain in 2000 the story of the show and its director became beneficial highlighted. Later in the same year, a writer in Stockholm named the Wild Side Story a " cult show " for the first time . In 2003 and 2004, a Stockholm city tourist magazine described the piece as follows: "A cult classic ... wonderful evening with song, dance and music in a fast-paced parody", with "Laughter, fun, pantomime, dance and music being made by Wild Side Story funny about the weaknesses of human behavior and much more ”. In 2003, Sweden's leading gay magazine mentioned the drag queens as "quite beefy men with hairy armpits".

Lars Jacob with Ensemble in a television interview in 1997
The director visited Berlin in 2015 on a trip to see continental cabaret stages.

Core issues

Lars Jacob was interviewed on Swedish television about the Wild Side Story. On the 1997 live broadcast, he said, “Since I was 13-14 years old, I've always found it so confusing with all the sexual hypocrisy we have in our society, religious hypocrisy and political hypocrisy, that's why I'm an anti - Hypocrisy fanatics - that's the only thing I'm fanatical about, against hypocrisy - so it becomes great fun to make jokes about double standards, as well as about the over-romanticization of our society, that means that young people have little chance of surviving with all this romance propaganda . "

Another time Lars Jacob directed four parts of a popular television series in 2000 where he said, among other things, "There's nothing really naughty on the show, but it's going to be a lot of fun with sexuality and romance and real love and all." made to ... (and as a reference to one of his brave casts :) I think it's great to be with people who dare and people who make something special out of life, not like Princess Madeleine : «I want an ordinary life live »- what? My God, this girl belongs to five of the most unusual families in the world, and the poor thing is forced to say something like« I want to live an ordinary life »!".

Web links

Commons : Wild Side Story  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Wild Side Story 1979-1998 on YouTube

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dagens Nyheter , September 27, 1985, p. 45
  2. ↑ TV Guide , June 6, 1959, p. A-38
  3. ^ Expressen , July 19, 1953, p. 3
  4. ↑ Betty Skawonius, Dagens Nyheter , August 18, 1993, p B03
  5. ↑ a b c Eva Norlén, Aftonbladet , July 21, 1997, p. 37
  6. ↑ Karl-Gösta Sälgström, Dala-Democrat , May 23, 1989, p 18
  7. ↑ Karin Rosencrantz-Bergdahl, Nya Ludvika Tidning , February 10, 1996, p. 8
  8. ↑ VeckoRevyn ( Stockholm ), September 1, 1971, p. 20 " Ledande man bland huvudstadens innefolk (leading man of the trendy elite of the capital) "
  9. ^ Perry Fulkerson, Evening Independent / The Scene (St. Petersburg, Florida), Nov. 11, 1971, pp. 1D, 14D-15D
  10. ^ Open Mike with Herb Hunt, Nov. 1, 1971, WLCY Radio, Tampa
  11. ↑ a b Facebook : CabarEng
  12. ↑ a b c d e Kim Ekemar, Wild Side Story at Showcase Alexandra's Stockholm ( reg.Kungliga Biblioteket ), January 6, 1976, p. 8
  13. ↑ Alexandra Charles, Alexandra on the Rocks , Stockholm, 1986, ISBN 91-7684-105-7 , pp. 60-61.
  14. ↑ a b Kalle Westerling, La Dolce Vita , ISBN 91-85505-15-3 , Normal, Stockholm, 2006: pp. 20-22
  15. ↑ Christer Lindarw and Christina Kellberg, This Is My Life ISBN 978-91-7424-533-2 , pp. 75-76, 122 & 264
  16. ^ A b c d Michael Kearns, San Diego Update / LA Life , Nov. 30, 1979, p. 13
  17. ↑ a b Island Connections ( Los Cristianos ), April 7, 2000, p. 2
  18. ↑ Stockholm City , March 22, 2010, p. 2
  19. ↑ ÄngelCab on YouTube
  20. ^ Metropolitan Room online
  21. ^ Stockholm Metro , August 2, 2013, p. 18
  22. ↑ Aftonbladet / Nöjesbladet , August 2, 2013, p. 25
  23. ^ A b Kathy Riley Stockholm International , SR International Radio Sweden July 16, 1997
  24. ↑ a b c d Linda Romanus, Tidningen Södermalm / Nöjesrepubliken , June 24, 2000, p. 22
  25. ^ A b Rob Stevens, Data Boy Pacific Southwest 235 ( West Hollywood ), October 26, 1979, p. 76
  26. ↑ Kim Ekemar, Wild Side Story at Showcase Alexandra's Stockholm (see above), January 6, 1976, p. 4
  27. ↑ Ella Smilkstein The Miami Magazine 24:14, February 1974, cover story, pp. 2, 41, 42.
  28. ↑ Lisbeth Borger-Bendegard, Svenska Dagbladet / I vimlet , September 14, 1975, p. 20; & 24 October 1975 p. 17
  29. ^ Lasse, Göteborgs-Tidningen , November 21, 1975, p. 16
  30. ↑ Sten Hedman, Damernas Värld ( Stockholm ), January 14, 1976, p. 10
  31. ↑ Oscar Hedlund, Dagens Nyheter , Jan. 17, 1976, p. 17
  32. ↑ Göran Sellgren, Svenska Dagbladet , January 9, 1976, p 14
  33. ↑ What's On ( Stockholm City Information Newspaper ), July 2003, p. 16, & July 2004, p. 12
  34. ^ QX , August 2003
  35. ^ Öppna Kanalen ( Stockholm ), July 22, 1997
  36. ↑ Baren TV3 (Stockholm) June 2000