House of Elvira: The HoEs Kick off Halloween Weekend

As they are seasonally wont to do, the House of Elvira, Reed’s premier drag performance club, put on their Halloween show last Saturday, November 2. Following a brief poster campaign and a flurry of digital advertising, the show took place at 8:00 pm in the Student Union. The crowd was quite large, so seating was on the floor. A number of performances highlighted various aspects of drag art as speech, from a Juno (2007) inspired look featuring alien birth, to a chair dance making light of the literal language of KISS’ “I Was Made For Lovin’ You.” Silver Debris, a Portland drag artist whose star is on the rise, was the main host for the evening, replaced at one point by a dog-eared Mx. Trix from Portland’s scenic and beautiful other small liberal arts college, Cewis and Lark. Over the course of an hour and a half, about a dozen performers came and went from the stage.

The opener was a performance of Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science” from Guy FiHairy, whose face was reminiscent of Jim Carrey’s character in The Mask (1994). It was the first of approximately four numbers to employ a shirt dress reveal as a critical component of the costuming, an effect befitting the draftiness of the venue. It took the crowd a bit to warm up to FiHairy’s titillating performance, but they were prepared to cheer and whoop for the second performer, Garnett, who positively had them eating out of their hand. Garnett’s number was eclectic and the look was Mothman, using a cape and costume to evoke the image of a death’s-head moth with huge red eyes. Very Halloweekend. A special mention should go out to the deconstructivist show put on by Kitty Goth, who performed a classic cat number in a sleek black leotard. Kitty’s number featured a number of acts set to popular new wave music, reimagined to be descriptive of a cat having a frenetic episode. Astrid Nox boots-ed the house down (am I using that diction right?) with two apparent death drops in her Coraline-inspired number. The highlight of the first act was a number of performers coming together to give a cheer squad of femboys their time in the spotlight. The cheer act was crisp, well-timed, and spectacularly choreographed, featuring two human pyramids and a synchronous line of pom-poms dancing across the stage.

After an intermission that filled the SU with cigarette smoke, a small portion of the crowd returned to see the second act. In light of Silver’s explanation of drag at the top of the show as “involved in oppression,” the second act shone brightly with social commentary. The most notable of which seemed to be Miss Carey’s performance as Juno (2007) performing to Sabrina Carpenter’s sleeper hit “Juno,” this dance number ended with one helluva bang when the performer’s birth, hinted at through excelsior prosthetic work, erupted like a shit-weasel from the film version of Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher. The alien birth seemed to attack the performer, ending their number, and reminding us all of the danger of forced pregnancy which the Supreme Court foisted upon Americans following the cowardice of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her refusal to retire to protect abortion rights. A similar play with the language of a Sabrina Carpenter song followed Garnett’s number, and the penultimate performance also had a lot to say as it featured perennial drag star Mikey D performing an intimate number to “I Was Made For Lovin You” as Frankenstein’s husband. That look was complete with draping mummy wraps and killer leather pants. A real highlight came from Silver Debris’ performance, which saw silver garland complete the topsy-turvy nature of their performance and add huge gravity and sway to the performers hands, matching their stylistic step-dance. The show’s finale was a blood-sucking number to inspire nightmares, featuring a young performer, Vincent Van Hoe, working with two different crowd members to induct a new vampire into their order. 

Overall, House of Elvira’s Halloween show left nothing on the table and was a masterclass in performance and crowd engagement, everyone should be on the lookout for their next seasonal performance.