‘The Tribute Artist:’ Cross-dressing, sexcapades and the intrigue of New York real estate
ARNOLD WAYNE JONES | Executive Editor
jones@dallasvoice.com
Adriana (Mary Campbell) is a Diana Vreeland-esque former fashion maven: Owlish glasses, blowsy skirts and high-necked black blouses bedazzled by chunky jewelry. 
She’s a virtual recluse, now in her 80s, with her sole visitors Jimmy (Coy Covington), a Vegas female impersonator, and his bestie Rita (Angie McKnight), a boozy lesbian who trades jabs with Adriana. Jimmy is renting a room from Adriana when she suddenly dies, leaving no known heirs and a Manhattan townhouse worth millions. The fortune will just go to the state, Jimmy and Rita surmise, and — in a scene reminiscent of “A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd — they talk each other into a bit of good-natured larceny: Jimmy will impersonate Adriana until they can sell the place, split the proceeds and none will be the wiser.
Of course, that’s not how it plays out in The Tribute Artist by Charles Busch, now getting a regional premiere from Uptown Players. Jimmy and Rita don’t count on Adriana’s late husband’s long-ignored niece (Cara Statham Serber) and her trans son (Zander Pryor) interceding. They fall for Jimmy’s act as Adriana, and so does the dead woman’s former lover Rodney (Luke Longacre)… and least until things come crashing down.
Busch is known for his over-the-top satires of beach movies, Douglas Sirk melodramas and red-baiting potboilers, each with a leading lady played by a man in drag (the humor comes in part because no one acknowledges it). But The Tribute Artist veers from the formula: Jimmy is a man and he’s trying to fool others — the ultimate test of his acting skills. It’s also a convenient way for Jimmy to woo Rodney, a prison-tempered bad boy with tattooed junk and a history of repeated nudity. It is, ironically, one of Busch’s straightest plays — a farce of unraveling plans and sexual predation. It’s also damned funny.
Busch still gets to trot out his love of classic culture and old movies; the plot itself steals liberally from Arsenic and Old Lace, Psycho, Dead Ringer, A Stolen Life and other devious Doppelganger films. Jimmy often resorts to Joan Crawford and Mary Astor zingers to distract and fill in bits of Adriana’s past. But Busch also manages his own bon-mots: “You’re confusing nastiness with a European sense of irony,” Adriana scoffs, before noting, “Anyone worth writing to is in their graves.”
Covington, at one point a vision in hot pink and teal satin, was made for a role like this, combining physical comedy (he does a death drop to shame Laganja Estranja) and the perfectly-timed comic pause or bit of stage business (a lingering look at Rodney’s crotch, a hand fan produced for a dramatic exclamation point). Even some flubbed lines on opening night were spun into character bits. Longacre, in his wife-beater and repeated storytelling, is forcefully funny; McKnight has a memorable drunk scene; and Serber is, as always, par excellence.
If the play had a harder edge, you could see it becoming a comic thriller a la Deathtrap or Sleuth, but the stakes often turn away from insidious cross-plotting about inheritance and more about lusty bedroom hopping. That makes the ending a bit too tidy. But the seamless integration of intelligent discussions of trans issues without getting preachy may be its most cockle-warming aspect. The Tribute Artist pays tribute to more of us, in more ways, than appears at first blush.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 01, 2017.
