saavedra77 | THIS TIME IT'S MIMES!

Last week,

attam talked me into going to a cabaret sendup of James Cameron's Aliens at ReBar--a movie which, you have to admit, was always really asking for it:

I mean, for God's sakes, the script includes a character named "Spunkmeyer" and a marine sergeant who yells things like "Assholes and elbows, people!" (whatever that means ...). Then there's all of the gender reversals, the fetishization of Really Big Guns, all the conduits and penetrations, "Get away from her, you bitch!", etc. With that starting point, the script just needs a wink here and a nod there to push it all the way over the top.

For example: You may remember Hudson, the jarhead whose voice-cracking hysteria ("Game over, man!") prompts Ripley to compare him unfavorably to a certain survivalist moppet? All the play had to do was make the slapping he gets from Our Heroine somewhat more ... literal (think of that scene in Airplane). (To his credit, the actor playing Hudson replicates Bill Paxton's performance down to every whiney decibel.)

Ripley was, of course, portrayed as an eye-rolling, hair-tossing, hip-jutting drag queen. (The character was also subjected to a number of Sigourney Weaver jokes: "Do you need something to help you sleep, honey? I can put in Gorillas of the Mist ...") The power loader was a raincoat, stilts, two pairs of pliers, and a hardhat. The alien horde appeared as mimes in black leotards, eyeshadow, and conical hats. The Alien Queen was portrayed by three mimes piled-up, cheerleader-style, a pink New Years paper trumpet serving as her flicking tongue. A number of gags revolved around Newt's weird Aussie/British/Kiwi accent, bicycle-grease makeup, bird's-nest hair, and her catchphrase ("... mostly").

I think we caught the troupe's final performance of Aliens, but I gather that the they'll be mocking other movies at a club near you, sometime soon ...