------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- nctnfaaf 15 2004
DIVERSIONS
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Look into this
Krystal ball
A match made in heaven
G
ary Benoit*is no stranger to the Imperial
Sovereign Rose Court. He reigned as
Emperor X 21 years ago. Two decades later,
he hopes to he Emperor again, and it seems
there is no one out there to challenge him.
Benoit is the sole candidate for Coronation
2 0 0 4 , Matches Made in Heaven— Famous
Marriages Through History. There are no candi
dates for Empress, so Benoit will rule alone. As
they say, sometimes self love is the best love.
As it turns out, Benoit is single. But he cer
tainly isn’t short on social life. T he 48-year-old
works at Safeway, is the representative for his
union and is an avid community volunteer. He
has volunteered with the Friends of Pec pie
with A ID S Foundation for four years, deliver
ing dinners and Christmas presents to low-
income families affected by AID S. This year,
he volunteered for both Sam Adams’ and John
Kerry’s campaigns.
Benoit says his main goal as Emperor will be
mainly “to create a foundation for people who
want to he involved in fund raising for commu
nity organizations,” particularly organizations
that serve children.
Here is the action-packed schedule for this
year’s Coronation festivities:
• Voting Day: Noon to 8 p.m. Oct. 17,
Darcelle XV, 208 N.W. Third Ave.
• Casino Party: 3 to 6:30 p.m. Oct. 17,
Embers Avenue, 110 N.W. Broadway.
• Awards Dinner and In-Town Show:
6 p.m. Oct. 20, Darcelle XV. $15.
• Movie Screening: Ttke a trip hack in
time with Possum in the Willows, which was
filmed in Laurelhurst Park hack in the 1970s by
Empress XVII Elsa Daniels. 7 p.m. O ct. 21,
Embers Avenue.
• Monarch Reception: Raise your glasses
for outgoing Emperor XXX Scoty Foxx and
Empress XLVI Lotta Marie Liquor with compli
mentary champagne and hors d’oeuvres. 6 p.m.
Oct. 22, Embers Avenue.
• Out-of-Town Show: 8 p.m. Oct. 22,
Embers Avenue. $15.
• Coronation: 6 p.m. O ct. 23, Crystal
Ballroom, 1332 W. Burnside St. $35 reserved
tickets.
• Victory Brunch: 11 a.m. O ct. 24, Embers
Avenue. $20.
• Mad Scientist Party: 3 p.m. Oct. 24, Sil
verado, 1217 S.W. Stark St.
• Denver Diva’s Victory Show: 7 p.m.
O ct. 24, Embers Avenue.
To purchase tickets, contact the Imperial
Sovereign Rose Court at www.rosecourt.org or
P.O. Box 4864, Portland, O R 97208.
Intersex films document
fledgling movement
n celebration of the first-ever Intersex
Awareness Day, Port land-based advocacy
group Intersex Initiative will present a free
Intersex Film N ight from 7 to 9 p.m. O ct. 28
in Room 290 of Portland State University’s
Sm ith Memorial Union, 1825 S.W . Broad
way. T h e program will feature three docu
mentaries and one piece of “erotic spoken
word video art.”
Yellow for Hermaphrodites: Mani's Story
introduces us to New Zealand’s first out inter
sex person, Mani Bruce M itchell, who was
subjected to both genital and ear surgery when
it was discovered that the “wrong” gender had
been assigned at birth. M itchell— who was
horn Bruce and turned into Margaret thanks
to dumb doctors and nosy neighbors— now
goes by Mani, a Sanskrit word meaning both
male and female. It’s a powerful story about a
person who, considering M ani’s horrific back
liana Hamilton plays a lesbian college student
backstage in between lap dances in Pure Qold
ground and brave activism, remains positive
and humble.
Also screened will he XXXY, about a bike
messenger and a clinical psychologist who take
very different approaches to their intersexuali-
ty, and Hermaphrodites Speak!, a historic docu-
ment of 1996s first international intersex
meeting— with only 10 people in attendance.
Th6 anger in Heidi’s voice is palpable: “I get so
mad that I just wanna get a dull, rusty knife
and start hacking off other doctors’ genitals
and say: ‘Here, you son of a hitch. Now how do
you think it feels?’ ”
T he night will end with Bom Queer: dear
doctors, a poetic, sexually explicit short by
Shorona se Mbessakwini.
It’s reassuring and frustrating to see how
intersex people face the same struggles as other
queers: shame, silence, secrecy, isolation and
most of all lies— but in their case the lies aren’t
being told by Bible bangers hut by trusted med
ical practitioners who should know better.
These gripping films demonstrate that we’re all
■ in this together.
I
Aaron Kirk Douglas
ay Portland indie
filmmaker Aaron
Kirk Douglas will
hold a benefit to support
the production of his lat
est project, Krystal:
a short com edy o f epic
proportions, from 2 to
4 p.m. Oct. 24 at Holly
wood Theatre, 4122 N.E.
Sandy Blvd.
T he event will feature
a screening of D>uglas’
short documentary My
Days o f Awe arui Q rief,
P art I: D irk and Me,
which took home the
Best Documentary prize
at Portland’s Forest Film
Festival in May; an ani
mated storyboard of a
scene from Krystal; a per-
fonnance by Schicky
Gnarowitz and the Trans
parent Wings of Joy,
whose music has been
described as “stomping
Greek/klezmer/Ukraineo-
Russian frenzy-folk”; and
refreshments. T he sug
gested donation is $15.
Aspiring producers, take
note: Contributions of
who knits and studies $100 or more will earn
you a screen credit.
Baby
If you can’t make it to
the benefit, check out
Dirk and Me at a Forest Film Festival fund
raiser from 7 to 9 p.m. Nov. 11 at Clinton
Street Theater, 2522 S.E. Clinton St. Tickets
are $6.
To R SV P for the benefit, e-mail
akdouglas@msn.com by Oct. 20. To make a
tax-deductible contribution, call 503-493-1128
or visit www.hollywcxxlrheatre.org.
Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center,
5340 N. Interstate Ave., will present staged
reading o f Pbying Tom at 3 p.m. Oct. 17 and
7:30 p.m. Oct. 18. For reservations and rickets,
call 503-823-4322.
Iff I strip ffor you ■■■
esbian stripper romance ensues in Pure
Qold Baby, an all-women-produced play
about exotic dancing that runs through
Nov. 13 at Milk &. Honey Community Studio,
2512 S.E. Gladstone St.
The play was conceived of by Portland
actors Sherry Okamura and Michelle Keil,
who met as nymphs in a 2001 Tygres Heart
prixluction of The Tempest.
“We Kith shared an interest in the subject
of exotic dancing,” says Okamura. “Michelle
worked in the industry 15 years ago and has
since become a wife and mother of two beauti
ful girls.”
Okamura danced for six weeks as research
for the prixluction. She says she’s thankful,
though, to he behind the scenes as director
rather than performing on stage.
The plot follows a young girl named Melissa
(Kayla Van Allen) on her path do becoming a
stripper. O ne of her tutorials includes learning
how to do a lap dance— the instruction takes
place in the live audience.
The lesbian character, Dylan (liana Hamil
ton), is a college student who knits and studies
backstage. She is wixxxl by Claire (Joslyn
Erickson), the bisexual riximmate of Melissa.
Okamura says Dylan and Claire’s romance
is “one of the happier” parts of the show.
“Much of the play is aKiut people’s scars.”
She and Keil used Sylvia Plath’s ptx:m
“Lady Lazarus” as a source of inspiration.
“There is a charge for the eyeing of my scars,"
reads one line in the poem.
L
See Tom play
ichael Teufel wowed us in 2001 as Tom
Wingfield in Tennessee Williams’ The
Glass Menagerie. Now Teufel is playing
the gay playwright himself in a one-man show
with the appropriate, double-entendre title,
Playing Tom.
m
You could say the Portland gay actor has a
unique affinity for all things Tennessee
Williams.
“In so many ways I feel that my life is
blessed by comparison to his— in my ability to
live as an openly gay artist, to love, to perform,
even to marry,” says Teufel, who appeared most
recently in Stark Raving Theatre’s Thmst. “In
this day and age when we live in danger of
having some of these essential freedoms
encroached upon and even obliterated, I can
only marvel at the fear and frustration that
Tenn suffered under,” he adds, using an affec
tionate nickname for the famous playwright.
Lesbian playwright Sandra de Helen (Burn
ing Up, Witch! ) says she was haunted by Teufel’s
performance in Menagerie. W hen she had the
chance to meet him, she told Teufel she
thought Williams would have loved seeing him
in the role of Tom. It was an easy leap for
de Helen to envision Teufel as Williams, and
from there the play was Kim.
“I believe that Tenn’s inability to come to
terms with and tmly embrace his own sexuality
is one of the driving forces behind the pain and
suffering that many of his characters experi
ence,” says Teufel.
M
Imperial Sovereign Rose Court Emperor X
Gary Benoit will be rechristened as
Emperor X X X I during Coronation 2 0 0 4 on
O ct. 23 at Crystal Ballroom
“We tixik this [line] literally for use with
strippers,” says Okamura. “All of the charac
ters...are scarred in one way or another...from
physical or sexual abuse, which many dancers
have a history with— scars of the female expe
rience— aKirtions, breast cancer, self-mutila
tion or psychological scars.”
How Pure Gold Baby — which champions its
titillation appeal— differs from an actual strip
club is up for debate. Okamura says the differ
ence is that “all of the women in our show are
gorgeous. You’re not always going to get that in
a real club!"
A play by women exploiting their own
beauty to rell a tale of women’s beauty being
exploited? Wasn’t it bard-of-the-nymphs
William Shakespeare who noted that “beauty
provoketh thieves sixiner than gold” ’ J H
( ormpded by M ec ; D aly and JlM R adosta