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Dress to Kill
The March 30th issue of The New Yorker has a fascinating article entitled "Open Season" by Robert M. Sapolsky. In it the forty-year-old Stanford professor of neuro science became depressed at his own "narrowing taste for the new" after observing his fresh-out-of-college lab assistant embracing it -- listening to a great variety of music, shaving his head to see how it would affect people's interaction with him, spending a weekend at a film festival of Indian Musicals just for the experience. Scientist that he is, Sapolsky decided to test "whether there were any clear-cut maturational time windows during which we form our cultural tastes" and "whether there was a consistent age at which such windows of experiences slammed shut." You'll have to read the article for details about his methodology and conclusions, but in a nutshell, the experiment did point to some definite age patterns of receptivity to the "new" -- for a particular fashion novelty this window of receptivity closed by age twenty-three; for popular music it closed by thirty-five and for an alien food type by thirty-nine.
What's all this got to do with the British stand-up comic Eddie Izzard whose Dress to Kill opened Thursday at the Westbeth Theatre Centre on Bank Street? Since I was able to open my window of receptivity to try the world of cyber publishing after a quarter century of being in print publishing, this seemed like a good time to see if my cultural window could accommodate the much touted outrageously dressed performer's brand of humor.
I wish I'd had Professor Sapolsky there with me to once again see his theory in action. Fortunately for Izzard, the dimly lit club-theater was packed with Generation X people who laughed hysterically from the minute lipsticked and bewigged Eddie, in black vinyl trousers and black and gold-patterned kimono sashayed onto the small stage, waved his black polished nails and went into his patter. "I'm a transvestite, but sexually I fancy girls" he explained in case there was anyone in the house who didn't already fancy him from his two previous appearances at P.S. 122. From there it was on to a running commentary about the absurdities of the world we live in -- including such weighty subjects as Star Trek, national and Christmas anthems, Easter eggs, sexually non-differentiated fragrances and sex in the White House.
I'll admit he's an endearing personality. His mischievous smile and perfectly timed fragmentary delivery makes you want to catch those fragments and toss back the expected laugh. Trouble is that Izzard is zippy and zany but lacks the sort of fresh take that's at the heart of a comedy act with enough sizzle to appeal to more than a niche audience.
The thirty-to-forty-year-olds in attendance at last Wednesday's performance tried their best to be part of the crowd, but their faces often looked more strained than amused. My people -- the over-the-hill-forty-to-golden agers (the last were rare enough to stick out like debutantes at a hookers' ball) -- could have doubled for the figures on Mt. Rushmore.
So there you are. My window of receptivity to Eddie seems to be jammed. Unlike Hedwig and The Angry Inch and Black Humor which gave some sense of theater, Izzard's show with its flashing lights and glowing portraits of Eddie all around the room, (incidentally looking remarkably unlike the real Eddie), is a comedy club act with some of the acouterments of a cult figure rock concert. As such the two hour show (longer if the audience is so inclined) is at least a half an hour too long. .
My guess is that Dress to Kill, not to mention the popcorn-filled ice coolers, will be packing them in at the Westbeth Performing Arts Center for the rest of the run. In the meantime I'm going to send this review to Professor Sapolsky and ask him whether he thinks my not staying the course past what I consider long enough for a stand-up act means I'm "hopelessly dipped in bronze" at least vis-à-vis Eddie Izzard.
| DRESS TO KILL Starring Eddie Izzard Scenic design: Markus Marette Lighting design: Amanda Garrett Sound design: James Murphy Westbeth Theater Center, 151 Bank St. (212/691/2272) Reviewed 3/28/98 by by Elyse Sommer Closing7/11/98 |
