When I heard that Ryan Landry was reprising his role as Medea I trembled in anticipation and awe, as did we all, I'm sure. I went last night with some friends, and I can report that Landry & Co. do not disappoint.  His Medea is divine, as is the whole cast of this tragedy with a twist. 

For those of you who've never had the pleasure of seeing The Gold Dust Orphans in action, it's a cabaret atmosphere.  They play fast and loose with theatrical conventions, and really nothing is off-limits if it's guaranteed to get a laugh and can be done on a shoestring budget. 

Landry's shows are more than cross-dressing celebrations of the high camp canon.  They're in a long tradition that stretches back to the satyr plays of the Greeks, of burlesque theater. There are elements of vaudeville here, and commedia dell'arte, but I imagine the atmosphere wouldn't have been that much different at Shakespeare's Globe, especially when  bawdier pieces were presented there.

And the bawdy moments here are up there with the best, let me tell you.  There's full-frontal the likes of which you probably haven't seen since The Silence of the Lambs, and a pole-dance-cum-bloodbath that reminded me of the climax of Carrie, if it had taken place in a dunk booth at the state fair.  The tragic aspects of this, the mother of all tragedies, are mocked with such complete and utter disregard for any conceivable standard of good taste that I might venture to call Landry's adaptation not only subversive, but brave. 

But the elements of the original are all intact, and the comedy that Landry draws out of them, while it skews them, doesn't diminish them at all.  Whether that speaks to the durability of the archetypes in the original, or to The Gold Dust Orphans' skills in conveying them I can't say.  One thing's for sure:  in exaggerating certain aspects of the original, as the best satire does, this production offers interesting insights. I was struck by what Landry and his crackerjack troupe were able to accomplish on a budget — and it seemed the epitome of what theater can — and should — do.  (After a few cocktails, mind you.)

Speaking of The Troupe.  Afrodite as the nurse was stellar (it took the audience a while to know what to make of her performance, it was so intense), Billy Hough's Kreon was a comic treat, Scott Martino's Mercury in a gold lamé thong was dee-lish, and I would be remiss not to mention Mark Leahy's magnificent treasure trail, which basically starts at his chin, and which I, for one, found demanded my full and uncompromising attention whenever it made an appearance...


Which is another thing I love about The Gold Dust Orphans: if the men are not got up hilariously in drag, they're nearly naked. It's the best of both worlds.

I had the great good fortune of sitting next to Kilian Melloy, assistant arts editor at EDGEBoston, who was there to review the show. We chatted a bit about it during intermission. He was thinking about how Landry's version was not far from the satires of Aristophanes.  The great tragedies tended to serve as seedbeds of satire.  I guess the question is when does parody — the conscious mocking of what has become clichéd — become inevitable? When does the horrifying become a harvestable source of humor, and why?  It's a fascinating transition in consciousness and expression. 

We also talked a little about why it's funnier when a man wears a dress than it is when a woman does.  And why it's funnier than when a woman wears men's clothing.  I think it's fair to say that that's the conventional wisdom on the matter of cross-dressing, although I'm sure there are some drag kings out there who would insist they're every bit as hilarious as any old drag queen. 

But Landry's Medea would not be funny if played by an actress.  (Not to mention that the funniest single moment in this show would not have been possible with a female in the role.) It is also possible, of course, that Landry's Medea would not be funny if played by anyone but Landry.  But does the fact that the cross-dressing plays a major part in the comedy mean that Landry is expressing some truth about the feminine that a female actress couldn't?  Or is he actually expressing a truth about men? Is it the case, as Eva Keuls writes in The Reign of the Phallus that "because men cannot bear children, they must take possession of the bodies of those who can"?

Even in Greek theater, where men played all the roles, male and female alike, there was a third category. As Douglas MacDowell writes in Aristophanes and Athens:

Modern readers sometimes assume that female characters in Aristophanes must have been funny because they were played by male actors, but that is an error. In Athens men playing women were not exceptional, but normal. But a male actor playing a man dressed as a woman was funny; he did not look the same as a male actor playing a woman. The difference lay in the mask. An actor wore a white mask to play a woman, a darker mask to play a man. Normally a male mask would also have a beard. When the Kinsman is dressed up as a woman, the beard is removed from his mask by some stage business, but he undoubtedly continues to wear the dark mask, and the combination of a dark face and feminine clothes give him an absurd appearance for the rest of the play, becoming even more ludicrous when the feminine clothes are found to have a phallus underneath.

I think it's a fascinating question what makes Landry's performances, which always incorporate drag, so damn funny. 

Whatever the reason, he's outdone himself, again, with Medea.