Genius drag queen and playwright D’Arcy Drollinger is no stranger to wild dramatics—her star turn as Champagne Horowitz Jones Dickerson White in her film “Shit & Champagne” gave us a delicious taste of her stinging parodic dragsploitation wit. So when we heard that “Bitch Slap!,” her uproarious send-up of nighttime soaps, telenovelas, and romance novels of the ’80s and ’90s, was returning to her club Oasis SF (through May 18), we knew we needed a deep dive into her hysterical influences.
As its tagline promises, “Bitch Slap!” revels in “adultery, blackmail, confessions, amnesia, nervous breakdowns, bigamy, adoptions, divorce, kidnapped babies, evil twins, seduction, catfights, and shoulder pads.” Starring Drollinger, Matthew Martin, Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, LOL McFiercen, and other fabulous stage players, the show reads like Jackie Collins on meth.
Here’s just the beginning:
After discovering Her husband’s affair and her dark secret as a medically diagnosed nymphomaniac has been revealed, fashion maven Diana Midnight, “accidentally” falls down a flight of stairs during a charity event and is airlifted to a near-by hospital. When the medivac unit collides with a flock of seagulls, the helicopter goes down in the Pacific Ocean and Dianna’s body is lost at sea.
And it goes on like that! We asked Drollinger for five formative vintage moments of high TV drama that fueled her love of the genres, a “slap down memory lane,” if you will:
We’ve gotta start with “Dynasty.” The Lilypond fight between Krystle and Alexis, played by Linda Evans and Joan Collins, put Dynasty on the map as an instant cult classic. These ladies were the vanguard of prime time cat fights. I loved that ridiculousness—and it’s still some of the best drama in the history of TV.
Next I have to say the “Dallas” who shot JR plotline. I was in grade school when this happened and it was all anybody talked about all summer—it was a cultural phenomenon—people made t-shirts! It made quite an impression on me.
All right, “Melrose Place.” When Kimberly pulls off her wig to reveal her scar and we realize that she’s insane—this was an iconic moment—on par with the Fonz jumping the shark on “Happy Days” and Farrah Fawcett’s skateboard chase in “Charlie’s Angels.”
How about “The Fashion Roadkill” episode of “Sex and the City” when Carrie falls on the runway in Season 4, which I lovingly lampooned at Oasis in one of my Sex and the City stage parodies.
And finally, the whackadoo plot in the Dynasty spin-off “The Colby’s” second season finale, when you have Miles’ wife Channing saying she’s going to have an abortion; Sable kidnaps Monica’s son; Francesca seemingly dies after a car crash involving herself and Philip; and Fallon, stranded in the desert, is apparently abducted by aliens in a UFO. Another epic jumping the shark moment, bringing us back around to the six degrees of Henry Winkler!
BITCH SLAP! through May 18 at Oasis, SF. More info here.
