Out of shul and life’s a drag
BY day, Irwin Keller is the spiritual leader of a Jewish synagogue -- by night, he is a professional drag queen.
LEXI LANDSMAN
BEFORE Irwin Keller stands on the bimah as spiritual leader of Congregation Ner Shalom, he prays, but not in the conventional sense.
“I just always pray before services that I’m not really exhausted and confused,” he jokes from California, referring to not mixing up his tallit with his sequinned frock.
It’s not what one would ordinarily think of before entering a synagogue, but there is nothing that ordinary about Keller.
By day, he leads the congregation, but by night he is a professional drag queen and one of the founding members of the Jewish-flavoured Dragapella Beauty Shop Quartet — Kinsey Sicks.
While his two vocations might seem like an unusual mix, Keller says it was his experience as a drag queen that led him to become a queen of the Sabbath.
“I find it easy to move the energy of a room, to bring people to joyous places and then to deeper places, and then give some humour to glue it all together,” he muses. “Those kind of skills really came from lots and lots of stage time. Thats not my content on the bimah, but it definitely informs my style and skills.”
It’s been a long journey for Keller, who only took his place at the congregation in Sonoma County, California, at the age of 48.
“When I was young, I had a couple of junctures where I considered going to rabbinical school, but I didn’t. I made other choices but then I ended up here any way.
“It’s funny because I look back and I think, gosh, if I had done it when I was that young, how would I have possibly managed on the bimah and also what would I have had to say? My life has been such an interesting journey that I find that I’m not certain what insights I would have had if I had taken that path straight out of school.”
A Chicago native, Keller grew up in an artistic Jewish household — so artistic, his parents were actually disappointed when he decided to go to law school. He studied for a time at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and then in Chicago, training as a lawyer and later studying biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, Yiddish, classical Egyptian, biblical exegesis and medieval Jewish philosophy.
Keller later moved to San Francisco, serving as counsel for an AIDS legal referral panel.
It was an initial fear of revealing his sexuality in a rabbinical context that led him to study law instead as a more secure career.
“In those years, when I was still in college and was first coming out of the closet in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, it was a time when there weren’t openly gay rabbis, except for one,” Keller recalls.
“I realised that I could go through rabbinical school and end up with no job, and I presumed, at that time, with no future … So I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t live a life as an openly gay person and be a rabbi at the same time.”
But within a few years a number of American rabbis revealed their true sexuality. By then, Keller was on another path that led him to the destination he had originally hoped to travel — something he believes was “beshert” (meant to be).
“Things have really changed so hugely, so incredibly. I’m really proud of these two paths, of each of them, and having both of them at the same time,” he extols.
“The more freedom people have to be creative in all sorts of ways, the more they have in their lives and the more they bring to the Jewish community. We need to unleash that and I’m really proud and happy to be an example of that.”
IT was at a Bette Midler concert in San Francisco that the Kinsey Sicks were born. Keller and three friends decided to attend the show dressed in drag as the Andrews Sisters.
“We figured, a crowd going to see Bette Midler would be full of drag queens and, as it turns out, we were the only drags there.”
At the concert, someone approached them to sing in their costumes at a party, and Keller, thinking none of his friends could sing, refused the offer.
He was halted though by Ben Schatz — the other Jewish founding member of the group — who revealed all four could indeed sing.
“We went home that night and started singing and we stayed up until four in the morning harmonising and coming up with ideas for parodies, funny songs and sketches. And really, so much of what we conceived that night ended up being the blueprint for the Kinsey Sicks.”
The group made their off-Broadway debut in 2001 with Dragapella. Ever since, they’ve spent half the year touring. They’ve recorded six albums and have been the subjects of two feature films.
For the first time, the four-person a capella group will tour Australia to perform their unique shtick, The Kinsey Sicks: Each Hit and I from March 2-6 at the Seymour Centre in Sydney, as part of the 2010 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
“It will be my first time in Australia, I’ve always wanted to visit Australia and I’ve never had the chance,” Keller enthuses.
So what can audiences expect to see and hear? “It will be outrageously funny; it will be almost entirely sung in gorgeous four-part harmony. A lot of highbrow stuff and some of the lowest brow stuff you’ve ever heard,” he laughs.
The group is made up of founding members Keller, who plays Winnie, and Schatz, who plays Rachel. The two remaining members — Jeff Manabat and Spencer Brown — joined the group in 2004, both coming from performance backgrounds.
Both Schatz and Keller play Jewish characters with songs including Who Says a Nice Jewish Girl Must Be Nice, Where the Goys Are and Men are Pigs (But Why Keep Kosher?).
“The Jewish flavour in our shows is inevitable,” Keller says. “Ben Schatz and I both come from very different Jewish perspectives but very profound Jewish experiences, so it’s present in our outlook, in our insights, how we think about the world and politics, and in our particular absurdist sense of humour.”
Indeed, while Keller grew up in an artistic Jewish household, Schatz, a Harvard-trained civil rights lawyer, grew up in a Jewish-American Communist family, attending Yiddish-speaking schools as a child.
Their shared love of Yiddish though is evident in many of their songs.
“Jewish audiences love to see themselves represented in a show like ours where they weren’t expecting to see anything Jewish at all and that’s surprising for them, and they like it.”
Looking back over his 16 years with Kinsey Sicks, Keller says the most rewarding experiences have been when their shows have been staged in unlikely places.
“When we perform in small conservative towns in the US Bible Belt, or reaching people that are really isolated. Those are the times that I realise we don’t just have a show, but a mission. Those are the ones I love the most.”
The Kinsey Sicks: Each Hit and I areat The Seymour Centre, Everest Theatre, until March 6. Bookings: (02) 9351 7940; www.seymourcentre.com.au; www.kinseysicks.com.
In the festival
Love amid the Nazi horror
MARTIN Sherman’s dramatic play Bent (written in 1979) is currently being staged by the B Sharp theatre company as part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival.
The powerful drama moves from the decadence of 1930s Berlin to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps, exploring how love can overcome the most ruthless circumstances. It brings to light the treatment of homosexuals who were arrested and interned in concentration camps.
The play is directed by Pete Netell, whose recent work includes a production of The Diary of Anne Frank.
The cast includes Jewish actor Sam Haft. Since graduating from NIDA in 2002, Haft has appeared in many Company B productions. He is also a founding member of Alchemy Theatre Company.
His TV and film work includes roles in Underbelly 2 and Bitter And Twisted.
Martin Sherman has lived in London since 1980 and works in theatre, television and film.
His recent work includes the screenplay for Stephen Frear’s film Mrs Henderson Presents and a new book for the Broadway production of The Boy From Oz.
Bent is being staged at the Downstairs Theatre at Belvoir St Theatre by Focus Theatre.
Bent is at Belvoir St Downstairs Theatre, Surry Hills, until March 14. Enquiries: www.belvoir.com.au/bsharp
Criminal intent in Chicago
THE musical Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story tells the story of Chicago university students, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, who brutally murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks in the mid-1920s and were sentenced to life in prison for their crime.
Written by award-winning New York playwright-composer Stephen Dolginoff, Thrill Me is being staged entirely as a musical for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival.
The story of Leopold and Loeb is told without hiding their sexual relationship.
Thrill Me stars Benjamin Giraud and Blake Erickson.
Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story¬† is at the Seymour Centre’s Downstairs Theatre, until March 6. Enquiries: www.seymourcentre.com
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