Charles Busch’s farcical The Confession of Lily Dare, presented by Primary Stages at the Cherry Lane Theater, features a strong female addressing her wrongs with murder. As in his previous satires such as The Lady in Question and Red Scare on Sunset, she is played in drag by the ever-inventive Busch with the aide of Jessica Jahn’s dazzling costumes and Katherine Carr’s wig design. (Rachel Townsend designed the sumptuous costumes for the rest of the company.) This hilarious spoof lampoons Hollywood’s trite attempts at depicting women’s tragedies.
The diva is Lily Dare, modeled on the heroines of soapy cinema melodramas as “Madame X,” “Stella Dallas,” “To Each His Own,” and “The Sin of Madelon Claudet.” Each of these guilty pleasures features a fallen woman sacrificing all for the child that doesn’t even know her. Busch miraculously channels Audrey Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, and Bette Davis as she journeys from innocent convent girl to sexy cabaret canary to tough-as-nails madame. His Lily is both a pastiche of glamour-gal stereotypes and genuine mother.
Carl Andress’s staging combines the lunacy of the Carol Burnett Show movie parodies with ribald adult humor as well as a touch of honest pathos.
Busch is supported by a troupe of versatile clowns including Nancy Anderson’s faithful, much-married sidekick; Kendal Sparks’s jovial pal, Howard McMillan’s oily villain, and Christopher Borg and Jennifer Van Dyck in multiple roles playing an octet of eccentric character parts. There’s more talent, laughs, and Hollywood nostalgia in The Confession of Lily Dare than a week-long TCM binge.
