There’s a throwback sense of queer activism that pulses through Tarell Alvin McCraney and Tina Landau’s Ms. Blakk for President, which is set in the early 1990s at the height of the AIDS crisis. The central figure is a real-life Chicago-based drag queen named Terence Alan Smith, whose bubbly and cheeky personality is perfectly captured by Ato Blankson-Wood. The character sits on the periphery of the Windy City’s AIDS activism subculture until Mark (Gideon Glick, amiable but intense), a more radical pal with a dying partner, recruits Terence to lead a stunt to draw more public awareness for the AIDS epidemic.
The idea is for Terence to challenge Chicago Mayor Richard Daley in his virtually uncontested 1991 re-election bid — as a drag character they dub Joan Jett Blakk who can disrupt the process by “losing loudly.” Dressed in a blond pixie-cut wig, glittery faux Chanel skirt suits, and Jackie O. pearls (costumes by Ari Fulton), Terence/Joan hits the streets to talk to would-be voters and make jokes about promoting a platform in platforms. She has a knack for disarming police officers who seem alternately horrified and amused — and for belting out covers of classic tunes like the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” and Madonna’s “Lucky Star” (backed by a small live band) that turn this Steppenwolf-transplanted production into a glorified ex-drag-aganza.
The following year, Terence mounts a write-in presidential campaign under the naughty slogan “Lick Bush in ’92.” “We’ve had bad actors for president — why not a great drag queen?” Joan quips (more than once). While Ms. Blakk for President makes some bold claims about the historic nature of this exercise, the reality is flimsier. The campaign consisted mostly of a handful of press appearances in Illinois and New York City that resulted in an unknown number of actual votes cast (presumably among the 24,537 miscellaneous write-ins tallied by the Federal Election Commission).
This creates a problem for the show, which focuses on Terence/Joan’s attempts to get inside Madison Square Garden during the Democratic National Convention dressed in an American flag-bedecked dress. Never mind that the gay media outlet that’s nabbed a press badge for her does not want her to jeopardize its future with such a stunt. Or that Mark, a likely composite character, is off protesting Democratic nominee Bill Clinton for barely mentioning AIDS in his acceptance speech.
It’s unclear what Terence hopes to achieve by sneaking into the convention beyond the novelty of it. The stakes here are limbo-bar low. No sooner does Terence boast about storming the convention stage and delivering a typically pop culture-referencing speech spotlighting queer issues than he admits that this is all a fantasy. Confronted by a cop for shouting in the arena, Terence as Joan actually backs down to avoid arrest. At heart, he’s still the accommodating teacher’s pet he admits he was as a student at his Catholic elementary school (no doubt a defense mechanism he developed as a “people-pleasing” Black boy surrounded by “a bunch of white kids”).
Oddly, the show also doesn’t dig very deep into Terence’s life, career, or relationships — or what happened after the presidential runs. (We never learn at all about Blakk’s 1996 campaign, with the slogan “Lick Slick Willie in ’96.”) We do hear about Terence falling out with Mark and the Queer Nation crew, who wanted “less theater and more action.” This is curious, because we also see Mark dress down Terence/Joan whenever they talk about real issues in character: “Stick to the fun and let me hit ’em with the lines,” he tells Joan at one point. There are hints that the mostly white AIDS activists like Mark might have treated Terence as window-dressing to attract media attention while reserving the real advocacy work for themselves — but the show doesn’t explore the idea.
What’s striking about the play, and about the history of the AIDS activism movement of the ’80s and ’90s, is how much they benefited from the performative tactics that seemed to come naturally to the queer people the disease impacted. In one early scene, Terence and Mark participate in a “die-in” outside the Blue Cross Blue Shield building in downtown Chicago, neatly timed to the bells ringing at nearby Holy Name Cathedral. There’s a genuine theatricality in play.
But McCraney and Landau, who also directs, seem less interested in exploring serious issues than in creating an immersive period drag experience that begins the moment audiences enter the Vineyard Theatre. We’re seated around a cross-shaped raised catwalk printed with pink-and-black protest slogans (David Zinn designed the set, lit by Bradley King), with a dozen or so cathode-ray tube TVs hanging from the ceiling to play old videos and clips from the ’92 convention. The hard-working cast take turns performing drag solos, from the lithe, high-kicking Sawyer Smith to the twinky Nic Ashe to the deeply silly Adina Verson (whose pre-show routine is a kind of Russian nesting doll where they peel off a dinosaur costume to reveal a frog outfit and then a Santa suit underneath).
Blankson-Wood, who stepped into the Terence/Joan role at the last minute after a vocal injury forced Wayne Brady to withdraw, projects just the right mix of ingratiating charm and cock-of-the-walk confidence. He struts like a natural queen, and serves Darrell Grand Moultrie’s dance choreography with a side of sass. As a time-warp drag show with plenty of surface glitz, Ms. Blakk for President can be a lot of fun. But whenever it strives to make a bigger statement, it feels wobbly on its platforms. ★★★☆☆
MS. BLAKK FOR PRESIDENT
Vineyard Theatre, Off Broadway
Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes (no intermission)
Tickets on sale through November 29 for $71 to $156