Divine: Beyond The Flamingos!

The Lowdown

March 1988. Divine is in a New York penthouse with a plane to catch, a male acting role waiting at the other end of the flight, and an apartment full of invited guests who have no intention of leaving. That is the whole setup, and it is a good one: the most famous drag performer of the twentieth century, cornered by his own hospitality, talking his way through a life that was funnier and harder than the legend suggests.

Eureka O'Hara plays him, which is the sort of casting that makes you sit up. An Emmy nominee off RuPaul's Drag Race with real stage chops, taking on Harris Glenn Milstead rather than the Divine persona alone — the man under the eyeliner, who wanted to be taken seriously as an actor and very nearly was before he died at thirty-seven.

Ninety minutes at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater on West 64th, from the team behind Make Me Gorgeous. It runs December 3 through January 17, which makes it a rather good answer to the question of what to do with out-of-town relatives in December.