Review: YOU SHALL NOT YASS, VAULT Festival

I have a confession to make - I have never been to a drag show. But, being quite a nerdy person, it was incredibly on brand that my first drag show would be You Shall Not Yass, a queer take on the Lord of the Rings franchise.

Using drag and parody songs, Herr and Me presents a hilarious hour-long show featuring iconic characters like Galadriel, Frodo, Gandalf, Gollum, Saruman, and Sauron, following the plot of the first installment, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. This is not the first time that Herr and Me have created a drag show based on something from pop culture. They have also created shows based on Desperate Housewives, Glee, The Addams Family, Ugly Betty, Disney films, and others.

The cabaret show begins with the prologue to the first film, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, with one of the drag queens dressed as the beautiful and terrifying elf Galadriel lipsyncing along to Cate Blanchett's voice in the movie. The movie only plays during this part of the show, but dialogue from the film is mixed in with the signs throughout the cabaret, which is made up of a mix of song parodies and lipsyncing.

The costumes and makeup are fun and work with each of the characters. I particularly love the fake feet that Frodo and the stage manager wore while dressed as hobbits, with barefoot toes and hair sprouting from the top. Gandalf and Sauron are gorgeous forces of nature in their own way, showing off sparkling dresses representing the good and evil of Middle Earth. And while the costume is simple, the makeup for Gollum/Smeagol is simply incredible!

The performer playing Gollum gives a show-stopping lipsync performance of "Bad Romance," at one point even crooning to a project golden ring on the screen. Another highlight is Galadriel's iconic scene with Frodo, hilarious eye movements (if you know, you know) and all. There's even a leafblower used to create the full effect of Galadriel's hair blowing in the wind as she claims that "All shall love me and despair!"

If there is one thing that could be improved on in the show, it would be having more characters with shorter acts instead of just a few characters with longer acts, sometimes with multiple songs. I was surprised that neither Legolas nor Aragorn make an appearance (though Orlando Bloom is referenced at one point in Frodo's parody of "Love Story" by Taylor Swift).

Other important characters like Boromir, Gimli, Elrond, and Arwen do not make an appearance in the show either. The only hobbit to appear throughout the show is Frodo, though others like Pippin, Merry, and Bilbo are referenced and the stage manager gets to dress as a hobbit to fit into the Middle Earth World.

Another small issue I had with the show was the choice of how long each of the acts were, particularly for the villains of Saruman and Sauron. While funny for the first few minutes, Saruman's act as a terrible magician gets tired after a while, repeating itself over and over again. Sauron's costume is, quite possibly, the most iconic of the show's costumes, and while I loved seeing it on stage, having four different songs for the villain while the others only got one or two at most was a little confusing.

Ultimately, You Shall Not Yass is a fun take on Lord of the Rings that will delight both fans of the franchise and fans of drag alike. While tickets are sold out for the rest of its performances at the VAULT Festival, I hope to see this show at another venue in the future.

You Shall Not Yass is running at The Flair Ground at the VAULT Festival on 26 January with 60-minute performances beginning at 8:30 PM. Tickets are sold out for this run.

Photo Credit: VAULT Festival

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