Past Reviews

Regional Reviews: San Francisco/North Bay


Bitch Slap
Oasis
Review by Richard Connema| Season Schedule

Also see Richard's reviews of Hair in Concert and Help Is on the Way


The Cast
Photo by Mr. Pam
The supreme drag artist D'Arcy Drollinger is presenting Bitch Slap at Oasis through September 9th. It's a never-ending laugh riot of campy humor. Drollinger has written and directed this riotous farce of 1980s soap operas and telenovelas. The clever script is a fantastic piece of uproarious work, performed in 90 minutes.

Bitch Slap centers around Diana Midnight (D'Arcy Drollinger) and her fashion empire, as she struggles to maintain power and desperately keep control of her prized possession—the patent for shoulder pads. There is a lot of adultery, blackmail, confessions, amnesia, divorce, evil twins, seduction, catfights, and shoulder pads involved and a hell of a lot of bitch slapping. I will not attempt to present you with a plot, as it goes all over the place. It's a put-on of such soap operas as the "As the World Turns," "The Days of Our Lives," "Dynasty," and "María la del Barrio."

Drag royalty D'Arcy Drollinger, Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, Matthew Martin, Jef Valentine, and Crissy Fields star in this uninhabited production, and they are fab-u-lous. With Leigh Crow, Nancy French, Manuel Caneri, and Sergio Lobito, the whole cast is hilarious. Steven Lemay is screamingly funny as daughter Portia and Adam Roy with his rubbery face is sidesplittingly comical in every role he takes on. He is part Jerry Lewis with Red Skelton thrown in for good measure.

Bitch Slap plays through September 9, 2017, at Oasis Club, 258 Eleventh Street at Folsom, San Francisco. For a full lineup at the club and for tickets go to www.sfoasis.com.