Maria: “Who are you Tony Parker? You slipped into my life as easily as Vermouth into a glass of gin, quickly and just a bit too smooth.”
Tony: “I’m just a good for nothing son of a drunken Irish pool room hustler.”
These and many other comical lines make up the Charles Busch play titled Die! Mommie! Die! The show hits the Falk Theatre Stage Thursday, Oct. 14 and runs through Sunday, Oct. 17. The curtain goes up at 8pm Thursday through Saturday—Sunday is a 2pm matinee.
The show is new and the cast is small, but the energy is high and the laughs are plenty.
“Die! Mommie! Die! is a retina burning, highly theatrical, acid trip experience!” says senior cast member Zack Hines.
Hines takes on the cross-dressing role of Angela Arden, following the Busch tradition of her character being played by a man.
The play makes reference to thrillers from the 1960s and alludes to famous Greek tragedies such as Agamemnon, in which the protagonist is slain by his wife Clytemnestra and avenged by her own daughter, Electra.
This Dramedy directed by Ami Sallee Corley, features the larger than life Angela Arden, a faded pop star, who is stuck in a bad marriage.
She finds happiness in the arms of a younger man and murders her husband, but her daughter quickly suspects her and plots Electra-esque revenge.
The daughter, Edith, convinces Lance, her brother, to kill their mother and thereby avenge their father’s death.
But Lance wants proof, so he slips some LSD into Edith’s coffee after dinner one night and triggers a crazy acid trip to get her talking, exposing some of her deepest, darkest secrets.
During the run of the show, make sure to keep an eye out for a fundraising event organized by the Mommie cast and crew.
“We are waiting for final approval from our director,” says Hines, “but we plan on having an event throughout the run of Die! Mommie! Die! called Give!
Mommie! Give! We’re going to raise money for The Trevor Project, as a reaction to the horrific number of gay teen suicides.”
The Trevor Project is America’s only 24/7 suicide-prevention telephone service, providing support and counseling for lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexualyouth nationwide. The toll-free number connects callers to trained counselors for free and the conversations are completely confidential.
Die! Mommie! Die! is fairly new on the theatre scene.
The script was written in 1999, and adapted for film in 2003. Charles Busch, the playwright, performed the lead (Angela Arden) himself, completely dressed in drag.
The show plays on themes from movies in the 1950’s and 60’s, all featuring dominating leading ladies. Die! Mommie! Die! was not actually staged and produced until 2007, where it opened that October for previews at NYC’s New World Stages Off Broadway and officially premiered on Oct. 27.
Just under three years later, Die! Mommie! Die! is on the UT stage, making its Tampa debut.
Lance: “Listen buster, if you want anymore singing out of me, you better haul out that bratwurst and spread some mustard on it!”
Bootsie the Maid: “You never fooled me. I always knew you were nothing but trash washed across the Canadian border!”
Expect a highly laughable, over the top performance from UT’s diverse and talented cast.
General admission is $5 but for UT students, it’s free with a Spartan ID.
Sophie Erber can be reached at serber@spartans.ut.edu.