Lypsinka: The Passion of the Crawford
It's hard to describe exactly what this performance piece is about, but that's never stopped me before. You start with a male cross-dresser named John Epperson who performs in drag as Lypsinka. Next, you take audio clips of Joan Crawford from radio interviews and her movies and do a Burroughsian cut-up on everything but the opening interview. Add a second lip-syncher for all the non-Joan sections, and put both of these guys on stage and let them act out to the soundtrack you've created. There you go: a 70-minute show.
That's the technical details, but trying to explain what is actually is about or is supposed to mean would take a graduate student in the performing arts. My take on it is that you should go away from The Passion of the Crawford with a better visceral understanding of old-school Hollywood, a time and system that is no more. Actors and actresses these days are not the larger-than-life figures that Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, and Joan Crawford were (I'm not exactly sure they were that larger-than-life in real life, but they certainly were over-the-top not only in their movies but also in their publicity, such as the sound clips liberated for this show.) While Lypsinka doesn't sound like Crawford, and the prominent Adam's apple prevents a complete look-alike, she--er, he--does provide the mannerisms, up close and personal, that provides you an insight to the, yes, passion of this screen queen.
When the play switches from the interview into a montage of bits from speeches and movies, it loses more than just its linearity, but also its focus. I assume the idea is to try and create an emotional link with Crawford, but all it did for me was to increase my chair-squirming quotient, which had already been fairly high from just the strangeness of the thirty-minute interview. While some will claim that there's no performance or artistry to someone doing lip-synching, I'll disagree--Epperson and his stage partner do an excellent job with it, much better than Vanilla Ice or Ashley Simpson, although its much more effective in the interview than the song snippets, which is what most people connect lip-synching with.
I attended this for free, and was initially reluctant to go even at that price. It was better than I had expected, but I won't be waiting in line for another Lypsinka performance. However, going the one time was certainly an experience.
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