Review: BITCH SLAP! at SF Oasis

Bitch Slap!

Written and directed by D’Arcy Drollinger

SF Oasis

Bitch Slap! is back, and its bigger (both hair and shoulder pads), badder, and more bodacious than ever. With an all-star cast of San Francisco drag luminaries, Drollinger sets her high-camp, slapstick sights on the melodramas of the 80’s, telenovelas and the of course the monstrous fashions of soaps like “Dynasty”, “Days of Our Lives” and any Jackie Collin’s movie. Not one to hold back a comic trope, Drollinger throws in falls down stairs, helicopter crashes, amnesia, power struggles over the secret patent to a shoulder pad empire, treachery, deceit and of course, plenty of mistimed bitch slaps. Nothing seems out of place and the audience eats it up.

There’s a plot of course, silly as can be and it keeps twisting and evolving as it falls down the rabbit hole – a simple synopsis isn’t possible. There’s some fantastic use of pre-recorded video that expands the staging, the acting is both highly exaggerated (the many choreographed fight scenes) and often wonderfully subtle (a withering look by SF legend Matthew Martin). The costumes are eye-popping and cheaply expensive looking if that makes sense and the cast (Matthew Martin, Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, LOL McFiercen, and Jef Valentine, along with Michael Phillis, Manuel Caneri, Pablo Escobar, and Samuel Prince as the smoldering leading men, with the hilarious Emily McGowan and Cheetah Biscotti) is having a ball onstage.

Bitch Slaps!’ intentions aren’t as lofty as a Charles Busch or Ludlam. Drollinger knows his audience and aims quite a bit lower in the anatomy. His drag never falls into misogyny, rather skewering the stereotypical female roles played in hundreds of films and serial TV shows over the decades. His characters run the gamut from tortured, emotional messes to the rich, self-made titans of industry. There’s plenty of absurd hetero-shtupping, gay and lesbian suggestions, affairs, and never-ending cliffhangers to sit back and enjoy. The jokes and scenes keep coming set between cheesy original 80’s TV commercials hawking Arrid Extra Dry, Summer’s Eve, and Reunite on Ice.

Bitch Slap! continues through May 18th. Tickets available at the button below.

Photo Credit: Gareth Gootch

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