This is only the fifth syndicated season of “Xena,” but the pulse-quickening, fantasy-driven television program has already attracted a group of rabid fans who would do just about anything to indulge their taste for “Warrior Princess.”
With Lucy Lawless, a statuesque native of New Zealand, in the title role and a regular supporting cast that includes Renee O’Connor, Bruce Campbell, Hudson Leick, Ted Raimi and Kevin Smith, “Xena: Warrior Princess” began as a spinoff from an equally impassioned mythic-themed series called “Hercules and the Amazon Women.”
But in its fans’ eyes at least, MCA/Universal’s mythic “Xena” has quickly become a powerful pop-culture icon in her own right. She’s part of the buff new breed of female action heroes who can whop any stomach-rippling man with long hair that you might care to name.
“I am old enough to remember the time when television women just stood in the corner and said `Eek! Save Me!,’ ” says Chicago playwright Claudia Allen. “All we had back then was Diana Rigg, God help us.”
Well, now there are Xena and Buffy and lots of other examples of what Allen calls “television’s take-charge gals.” And for those who look deeper into these things, the script of “Xena” also seems to entertain a lesbian subtext. Or, at the very least, some intriguing sexual complexities are in play (for those who want to go there).
Take a pop-culture icon, add a dash of sexual intrigue, season with camp and boil in a action-driven stew. That’s the kind of entertainment recipe that the fringe of the Chicago theater loves to try.
So it’s perhaps no surprise that About Face Theatre and greasy joan & company are collaborating on a new live, late-night show titled “Xena Live!” Previews begin in About Face’s Lakeview home on Friday night, with the press opening slated for Monday.
There’s a long Chicago tradition of spoofing cult television shows — from “The Brady Bunch” to “The Twilight Zone” — and extracting as many laughs as possible from overblown campery. But to some extent “Xena Live!” breaks that generic mold.
In this case, About Face and greasy joan actually got permission from the show’s owners to riff on their lucrative character (this is not the typical modus operandi for these things).
Claudia Allen, a well-respected local playwright, was enlisted to do the script. And the singular diva Alexandra Billings, who does not work for peanuts or Podunk operations, was cast in the lead. Finally, the creative team at About Face, which prides itself on being Chicago’s “only serious gay theater,” was persuaded to, well, let its collective hair down on the weekends.
“Xena is not one of those twentysomething size threes — she is a strong and powerful female who’s built like a normal woman,” says Billings, already salivating at the part.
Actually there are two Xenas in this live version (this is theater, after all, where you don’t have special effects to thrill an audience). Billings plays Xena the Warrior and the equally well-built Elizabeth Laidlaw plays Xena the Lover, thus doubling the audience’s potential pleasures. Amy Matheny, a rabid Xena fan in real life and one of the instigators of the show, plays Gabrielle, Xena’s sidekick.
“If we couldn’t get the rights, we had all decided that we were not going to do the show,” insists Billings. “We didn’t want to lampoon anything. But Lucy (Lawless) and her husband are delighted we are doing this.”
Camp fans won’t be entirely left out in the cold (the villainous sorceress is played by a man in drag, and Allen sets all of the conflict in the dark confines of the Ravens Wood). But director Scott Parkinson says that this will be quite different from your typical late-night reading of a teleplay.
“We are not doing an episode from the show,” Parkinson says. “We have our own plot line with some of its own characters. And we relish the fact that this is a bunch of strong women — live on stage.”
“This show lasts 75 minutes and at least 45 of them are made up of people with swords kicking each other,” says Billings. “It’s very serious and very dangerous.”
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If you are a subscriber to the Shubert Theatre, you will already know by now that the planned March 2000 visit of “Jesus Christ Superstar” has been canceled. Speculation in New York is that the Broadway-bound revival of the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musical will be the next show to occupy New York’s Ford Center for the Arts, after the imminent closure there of “Ragtime.”
A New York spokesperson for the show said last week that it proved just too difficult and expensive to assemble the creative team for the Chicago engagement — but that this city will be the first stop on the projected national tour.
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Marj Halperin, executive director of the League of Chicago Theatres, has had a tough couple of weeks. The smaller theaters in her constituency have been up in arms about a series of city inspections that have resulted in demands for expensive renovations and the closure (for now, at least) of the Factory Theatre in Andersonville. As one might expect, conspiracy theorists have been arguing that because the city is investing so much in downtown theaters, it’s now cleaning up the neighborhood competition.
Halperin, who has a long, close relationship with the City of Chicago and regards that theory as “nonsense,” knows that clout-building will better serve the community than fighting City Hall. Over the last couple of weeks, there has been a series of meetings between all the relevant parties. And last weekend brought good news: The forcibly shuttered Stage Left Theatre reopened after bringing all of its facilities up to code.
