Kinsey Sicks in Things You Shouldn’t Say
Soho Playhouse
December 22, 2018
Production website
💉💉 out of 5.

The Kinsey Sicks is an institution in the gay community, and I never knew it!  Thinking this was going to be just another drag show to fill a chilly New York winter, I came to the theatre with little expectations.  I imagined that they were going to either 1.) be doing some off-color re-wordings of Christmas tunes or 2,) going to go down the “we are Jews revolting against Christmas, or 3.) Trump commentary.   We got some of this – but, thankfully much more.

The show had a tough time getting started.  It began with song after song designed to dig at Trump.  Some of it was funny, but the audience sitting with me tonight was really getting rather numb to any and all references to Trump.  Our Facebook feeds had been so overwhelmed with anti-Trump that it would take a mighty fine joke to move us into laughter.  

Then the show escalated to the “dirty slut” section of any drag show in which they focus on who can’t get laid and who the gonorrhea queen of the night is.  Admittedly this is funny but after the hundredth reference to being a slut and a nasty bitch it does wear thin.

What I found most amazing, and worth the admission ticket, was the  final section – the back story of Kinsey Sicks.   One member of the group had been with Kinsey Sicks since it’s inception in the 90’s.  Although sitting there in outrageous drag, Benjamin Schatz (Rachel) revealed that he was a bonafied Harvard lawyer that had joined the group twenty some years ago along with a group of three other professional men.  They met at a Bette Midler concert as they wore their first drag.  From that moment they became a very visible face to the gay community and soon took on the fight against AIDS intolerance.  They were a political force to deal with.

Sitting on a bar stool and sharing this fascinating history in gay culture was fascinating and quite moving.  Benjamin Schatz (Rachel) talked of the plight of the other three members of the group – – long being replaced by tonights performers and how drag become a fierce force in the march toward human rights.  

A bit of easy drag humor and am amazing look back into queer culture – a perfect 90 minutes.