By Venus Zarris
In a song by Pat Benatar, hell is for children. In playwright David Cerda’s HYSTERICAL hit Sexy Baby, that Hell is Heaven on Stage.
The night before attending this Hell in a Handbag Productions world premiere ‘docu-musical,’ I told a friend that I was very excited about seeing the show.
I said, “Sexy Baby, it’s a drag parody of Toddlers and Tiaras!”
He said, “As the father of a young daughter, I find that TV show sickening.”
I said, “It’s brilliant.”
He said, “It’s child abuse.”
I said, “It’s entertainment at its finest.”
He said, “I can’t watch what those monsters are doing to their children.”
I said, “Look, those parents are assholes; right?”
He said, “Yes!”
I said, “Well then, the kids are ALREADY shot so they should at least make me happy. It gives their lives purpose.”
Admittedly, perhaps my ‘right and wrong filter’ is a little off here. For those who are unfamiliar, Toddlers and Tiaras is a reality show on cable TV that follows the lives of children and their frightening parents who obsessively and compulsively compete in child beauty pageants. They spend tens of thousands of dollars to prepare their kids to compete for trinkets. It is a twisted inversion of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome meets pathetic and pathological vanity.
While watching it this weekend I literally heard a 2-year-old scream, “I want to dance the pole!” (referring to a stripper pole) This show depicts such unapologetic and indignant insanity that you wonder why other nations aren’t implementing no-travel bans on the United States. As the Queens of unapologetic and indignant insanity, it’s no wonder then that Hell in a Handbag Productions would make the disturbing phenomena of child beauty pageants their bitch.
As one of the judges for the Miss Sexy Baby Contest (Ed Jones) points out, “Some say that age 4 is too soon, but I say it’s never too soon to start looking your best! And if little girls start buying makeup, then it will help the economy.”
Sexy Baby is a balls-out hilarious romp into the bizarro world of child exploitation, perpetrated by the attention-addicted parents of the very children pimped-out in parades of jaw-dropping impropriety. Sexy Baby is also a brilliant social polemic. While it can easily be said that David Cerda is the definitive master of camp, he is also the documentarian of the backwash of humanity. His truth flies out of the mouths of these ‘sexy babies’ and that truth is our narcissistic absurdity, taken to the extreme, chewed up and then spit back in our faces. Cerda’s enticing camp masks the sophisticated deconstruction of our low-rent thirst for fame, at the very cost of even the most basic notions of decency.
“Don’t go putting stuff in your hoo-hah! It aint a storage closet. It’s a vagina!”
Don’t let this serious evaluation fool you though. Sexy Baby is an absolute lowbrow joy ride! It is a magnificent exploitation of exploitation, as everything wrong is delivered with sidesplitting, full-throttle, recklessly calculated abandon.
We meet the maniacal mothers and out-of-control children as they prepare for the Miss Sexy Baby Contest. Through sensational scenes and sometimes show-stopping musical numbers, by David Cerda and Scott Lamberty, we follow them through competition and on to crowning. There is SO MUCH material for Cerda to choose from in the real-life scenarios of these self-absorbed lunatics that writing Sexy Baby must have been as much of an editing job as it was a task of composition, but he gleans the madness to psychotic perfection.
“If it weren’t for me, you’d still be cooking meth in the trailer park with your momma!”
This fabulous cast gets it and nails it! From the wonderfully absurd judges, commenting through multi-media vignettes, to the desperation of the hyper-competitive mothers, to the dazzling little demented darlings themselves; this is a glowing ensemble of madness that never falters. Cerda retrofits the crazy into his concise script and director Derek Czaplewski retrofits a cast of fifteen onto the small cabaret stage of Mary’s Attic. The pace is great, the build is exciting and the payoff is delightful.
EVERYONE gets their moments to shine but special pageant prizes must be given out to Ed Jones and Doug Vickers, for most insightful judging, AJ Wright and John Cardone, for best gay daddies/pageant coaches, Heather Currie and Andrea Larson, for best pageant Mommies, and Alex Grelle, Edlyn Griffin, Elizabeth Lesinski, Steve Love and Jeremy Myers for best child contestants. The rest of the cast certainly deserves prizes as well but as we all know, there are only so many crowns to go around. We must however present a super special sash to writer/actor David Cerda for Best Legs in the Sexy Baby contest, and beyond!
“Oh Baby, Momma always told you beauty is pain.”
Just as there are show-stopping performances, there are show-stopping visuals. Costume Designer Kate Setzer Kamphausen and Wig Designer Jacob Green put the “T” in trash and the “G” in genius with their invaluable creations for this garish and gaudy spectacle of camp. You know you’ve wowed the crowd when you have to wait a few beats to let the audience catch their breath from laughing at an actor’s entrance, before a line is even uttered. Kristen Smiley’s choreography and Josh Walker’s music direction magnificently complete this fierce love letter to the worst among us.
“If my love came in a cup, it would be a Big Gulp.”
Though there are some who might dismiss Sexy Baby as a frivolous gay bar frolic, they are missing two things. They are missing the brilliant gift that Hell in a Handbag has of deceptively illuminating what we would oftentimes rather look away from and they are missing the unmitigated fun! If you don’t get camp then this will fly over your head like a toy tossed by a toddler in the throes of a tantrum. If the All-American sideshow freaks found on Toddlers and Tiaras are your guilty pleaser, Sexy Baby will take away that guilt and leave you with the absolute euphoria of outrageous laughter.
“I led that lamb right to the slaughter. I used to know her, she’s my daughter.”
Permit me, boys and girls, to lead you to the slaughter of this deadly funny, deceptively ingenious, disturbingly decadent, wickedly wrong, unadulterated triumph of trash! Unless you hate to laugh, DO NOT MISS Sexy Baby.
4 STARS
(“Sexy Baby” runs through June 16 at Mary’s Attic, 5400 N.Clark Street, Chicago. 800-838-3006)
TICKETS: Sexy Baby
Sexy Baby production photos by Rick Aguilar.
David Cerda’s legs image by Venus Zarris.
* Visit Theatre In Chicago for more information on this show. Sexy Baby - Mary’s Attic - Play Detail - Theatre In Chicago
