Dixie’s Tupperware Party  

Off-Broadway sensation comes to Mississauga!!!

 

the only Canadian stop on a North American tour

 

more fun than

“a gaggle of lesbians at a home depot sidewalk sale”                 

 

 

If you’ve never been to a Tupperware party and feel a little shy about sitting in someone’s badly decorated living room waiting for a rimming demonstration while sipping cheap chardonnay from a plastic goblet, well have no fear, the best Tupperware party in town is taking place at the Living Arts Theatre in Mississauga, and believe it or not, there is an actual rimming race where contestants learn how to properly apply the tops to their favorite Tupperware items. 

 

Ms. Dixie Longate, fresh from the trailer parks of Mobile Alabama, with a vocabulary as racy as a blue movie, and sexy innuendoes that would make a gaggle of lesbians blush, entertains with breakneck pacing and non-stop side splitting energy for ninety minutes of authentic Tupperware fun.

 

There’s a Tupperware order form and a generous portion of pretzel mix at each cabaret style table in this hilarious one ‘woman’ show running in beautiful downtown Mississauga, only a 37 minute car ride from the CN Tower with your google map held tightly in one hand and your food storage fantasies firmly imbedded in your plastic loving consumerist psyche.

 

Endorsed by the Tupperware Brands Corporation, with representatives as famous as Ms. Brooke Shields featured in their catalogue, Dixie’s ‘cross-dressed’ approach to hostessing is a refreshing, good old fashioned interactive, semi-scripted, slightly improvised evening of first rate solo drag performance. But stop yourself before presuming that Dixie would ever admit to being in drag. She only gives interviews in character, and her comic professionalism has the audience in stitches the minute she enters the room. My guest said his face hurt by the end of this Lucille Ball-like roller coaster ride chuck full of scripted wit, improvised wisecracks, and interactive whimsy.

 

Dixie’s seamless southern inflected delivery rolls in and out of frequent bursts of the most stylized and comically effective form of repetition, mixed with an almost stuttering-like quality. The result is so infectious that one becomes totally entranced by her vocal artistry. She is an amazing performer-cum-hostess to simply watch and enjoy as she floats across the stage in red and white checks and a lovely floral apron. But if that’s not enough then there’s her relentless ribald humour, mixed eloquently into an actual Tupperware sales party.  You might find yourself coming home with the ever-popular #484, the Open House Chip-N Dip Bowl. Who can resist a food storage container that, as Dixie says, “Holds more than most lesbians can eat in an entire playoff season.” Or if you’re looking for something a little less food focused and slightly more titillating, then try the vegetable holder (cucumbers anyone?) that, as Dixie suggests, can be kept at your bedside for very special autoerotic occasions.

 

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the show is the fact that Tupperware Canada actually endorses the whole shebang and takes orders in the lobby. Dixie herself has been awarded banners of excellence at the annual Tupperware Jubilee Convention, and she includes ample amounts of plasticized history in her party as she shares information about original founder, Earl Silas Tupper, who brought these food containers to the public in 1946. Heidi Wise began to develop the ever popular - 1950’s and beyond - Tupperware Party marketing strategy that many of us fey baby boomers remember as being a part of our dear mama’s home life. All those ladies in the living room, fawning over the latest piece of durable molded plastic, what was a poor disenfranchised gay boy to do but join the girls and coo over a condiment tray or two.

 

Dixie inserts some drama into her reminiscences near the end as she moves into somewhat more dramatic tones regarding an abusive husband, and even visits the racialized aspects of her southern origins in one line when she says she had an idea that “struck her like a police night stick during Black History Month.” Ultimately Dixie’s message becomes one of hope and hilarity that promotes self-identity and a strong sense of independence and camaraderie - albeit camaraderie that never loses sight of the chance to make a caustic comic quip whenever the saucy spirit moves.

 

A force to be reckoned with, and presently on a North American tour, with Mississauga as her only Canadian stop, Dixie’s show runs at the Living Arts Theatre until January 31^st.  This Tupperware party promises to be nothing like the ones you remember mama throwing, unless of course you were lucky enough to have a gorgeous southern drag queen for your mother!

 

until January 31^st, 8:30 p.m. - RBC Theatre - Living Arts Centre, 4141 Living Arts Drive, Mississauga, Ontario

ON AVATAR, TITANIC, MY MOTHER, THE CHIPMUNKS, NINE, DAYBREAKERS, THIRST, SHERLOCK HOLMES, IT'S COMPLICATED, THE LOVELY BONES, BLINDSIDE, & SPREAD - DID I FORGET ANY?

I disliked Avatar because I felt the technology was overkill after about an hour. I felt lost in a decorative, repetitive, and violent theme park. At least the violence was pretty and that big bad marine was fabulous. Nice haircut buddy. You can come over to my place for cocktails and hand grenade canapes anytime! 

Avatar made me feel the same way I did when I went on the 'It's a Small World After All' ride with my mother at Disney World about twenty years ago. Then we went on Space Mountain. Poor Mommy. I thought she was gonna pass out. I wonder if she would have liked Avatar? Cameron's 'Titanic' was the last film she ever saw. Good Lord, I hope 'The Chipmunks' is the last movie I ever see. Haven't seen it yet and I don't plan to unless I get really bored. I think the Chipmunks are the greatest male vocalists (tied with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons) of the twentieth century. Yay Alvin!

I also thought, about Avatar, for all that money, why not tell such a tired old story in a more interesting and less redundant and repetitive manner, but i was never completely bored really, just disenchanted somewhat, and offended by what I saw as unoriginal excess onscreen re. story and design. If I want glowing jungle flowers i'll try crack. If I want abject colonialism i'll have another look at the life of Grey Owl or I'll take in another viewing of Disney's Pocahontas. At least Disney has music. Avatar needed a few songs to lighten the load, but apparently the Golden Globes disagrees. So be it.

Cameron should collaborate with Rob Marshall. 'Nine' is an excessive spectacle - all form and no content. Amazing to see all those incredibly talented women up their struggling through the maze of Marshall's dizzying and baffling editing choices, but the film has no heart, or perhaps too many hearts. It was a series of somewhat incoherent music videos strung together badly by someone who misunderstands Fellini, existentialism, coherent editing choices, and a whole bunch of other things I know precious little about but when I see them done badly boy do I ever get annoyed!

The Lovely Bones was nuts, but worth seeing for Susan Sarandon's performance in a comedy that had nothing to do with the tragedy she was actually in. And there should be a law against Stanley Tucci being in a movie with his clothes on! The young fellow playing the self-proclaimed "moor" was a vision, and the whole subtle race narrative was really interesting, but this film was so weird as far as style and fantasy and limbo go that people were laughing in all the wrong places, which I love. How bout that eh, a film about serial killers that tickles your lovely funny bones. Yikes!!!

And 'Daybreakers'!!! It broke my day. It stunk. Even the lovely Sam Neil and the hot Ethan Hawke couldn't keep me interested. You do get to see Ethan's boobs once though. At one point I leaned forward and politely asked two young women to hold their cell phones in their laps because I was seeing three screens in front of me. By the end of Daybreakers I think I might have enjoyed what was on their cell phone screens more than the film I was trying to watch. What a bore. If you want to see a real vampire flick see 'Thirst.' An amazing Korean film on video on demand when I was in Vancouver two weeks ago and I saw it at AMC ages ago. An incredible AIDS metaphor with spectacular design and acting.

Loved Sherlock Holmes. The gayest movie ever. Loved most of 'It's Complicated,' especially Alec Baldwin's aging hairy carcass and his gorgeous mug, and Steve Martin's pot-smoking scenes with the flawless Meryl, but I was so pissed off when we didn't get to see her newly renovated kitchen at the end that it ruined the whole film for me.

Started sobbing gently five minutes into Blindside and cried all through it. Wasn't sure why I was crying. 5 possible reasons;

1/ i want to be Sandra Bullock

2/ i was troubled by the race politics that reflect so much of what is wrong on this capitalist drenched continent nowadays (I need to go shopping!)

3/ were these white people actually being nice to this young black man or were they just tapping into huge amounts of untapped white guilt?

4/ am i a closet football fan?

5/ too much Diet Coke

There should be a special awards for credits. Ashton Kutcher's 'Spread' (what a colossal dud of a film but you get to see lots of hot bodies, both male and female, yay!) The credits of 'Spread' were unexpected and harrowing. I couldn't look at the screen for most of it. They told the whole story in a metaphoric, gruesome, fairy tale gone wrong sort of way that totally grossed me out. Loved the credits, hated the movie. 

Which reminds me, sometimes the previews are just so damn good that I refuse to see the movie cuz it might spoil the trailer.

tra la . . .