Trevor Ashley: I’m Every Woman

Trevor Ashley's particular brand of drag performance (and his tastelessly over-ripe vocal style) will probably seem like pure pleasure to many, and to be sure, his comic banter begins the show on a thrillingly confident and ingratiating note. His enthusiasm here is infectious, and he knows that bawdy jokes, well delivered, can feel thoroughly liberating to an audience

Fans of Tina Turner, Bonnie Tyler, Judy Garland, Bette Midler, and Cher may thrill at the thought of their heroines being paid tribute to - but is that really what Ashley is doing here? He may well have the sincerest of intentions, but sincerity alone could not translate the majority of his vocal interpretations into a pleasurable listening experience - at least not to these ears.

As Long As He Needs Me is an undeniable showstopper towards the end - an instance of style merging with content and producing very fine results - but what Ashley does to a perfect jewel of a song like The Rose is not pretty, nor funny, nor impressive, nor interesting in an avant garde fashion. The brutal demolition of popular landmarks like I Will Always Love You (complete with a crack-pipe-laden would-be Whitney Houston impression) is ultimately a thin, cheap joke that just gets irredeemably painful.

Houston is one of a number of divas whom Trevor Ashley seems to believe are fair game for mockery - but is it, in fact, liberating and usefully cathartic to make light of someone's fatal drug habit? Perhaps Lady Gaga does indeed deserve to be brought down a peg or two from the stool of artistic pretension that she seemed determined to place herself upon, but what makes this particular performer think that he's the one who's qualified to do it, simply by throwing on a pair of goofy glasses and rewriting her lyrics Mad-magazine-style?

Certainly Bette Midler, in her day, was known to run free with sometimes viciously cruel barbs, and it could be that Midler's audience at the time loved her all the more for what they reasoned as being her fearlessness and honesty. Do Trevor Ashley fans feel similarly towards him? Can we be entertained by his parodies while still honestly respecting the memory of Whitney Houston? Does a drug user, even a famous and dead drug user, not deserve respect

These are difficult and troubling questions, to which different people will certainly have different answers. One doesn't necessarily expect these issues to be weighing on one's mind during an ostensible light entertainment like this, but it seems doubtful that Trevor Ashley intended them to add dramatic content or complexity to his show (and conflict inside his critics). Instead, it feels more like a mere miscalculation, and a most unfortunate one.

In the end, Trevor Ashley has poured us a decidedly mixed drink; satisfyingly sweet, bubbly, and fizzy to start with, but leaving this reviewer with a sour taste. Your own mileage may well vary greatly from this one; the opening night Cab Fest audience rose to their feet en masse at show's end.

Anthony Vawser