When the final blackout signaled the abrupt but satisfying end of The Headliners on its sold-out opening night at Cherry Creek Theatre, the audience was already well aware we’d seen something pretty special. It’s an overused word, but “triumph” is an altogether appropriate descriptor for the world premiere of Colorado playwright Jeffrey Neuman’s fictionalized version of a real-life stunt wedding a century ago.
The story is of two very famous vaudeville performers: Eva Tanguay, an only marginally talented singer whose real gift was for publicity and provoking outrage with her suggestive songs. The other is the cross-dressing Julian Eltinge, a man who simply sees his skill at portraying females as a job and not an identity. When the two decide to marry onstage with Julian as a woman and Eva as a man (a real event in 1908), it sets up a battle of wills and an explosive series of backstage arguments as the two disagree on what, how, why and in what context they’re doing this thing.
Norrell Moore as Eva Tanguay | Photo: Olga Lopez Photography
With Neuman’s excellent script in hand, director Nick Sugar goes to work with a dream duo of Jeremy Rill as Eltinge and Norrell Moore as Tanguay. Acted on the small, rectangular stage at the Mizel Center’s black-box theatre, the audience gets to see in extreme closeup the tortured souls behind what should be a lighthearted performance. But even though the two are at their peak popularity, both are broken in different ways, with their public personae masking their personal demons.
The Headliners isn’t a musical, but it does make use of the songs sung by the two vaudevillians in their careers, and there’s a live band backstage with David Nehls on piano, Emily Lewis on violin and David Short on cello.
Moore sets the stage in the opening number, “Egotistical Eva,” popping out from behind the curtains in a dress made of money and showing off her sultry moves. With a wild head of hair, a husky voice and clear talent for having all eyes on her, Moore is a lot of fun to watch as the playful, naughty Tanguay. But as we get deeper into her character, the actor demonstrates many more emotional layers to depict the complex motives behind the attention-grabbing performer.
As Eltinge, Rill is similarly transfixing. From the moment of his first entrance — dressed as a man but still wearing some alluring makeup — the actor inhabits Neuman’s version of the real-life singer who, it can be said, set the stage for drag performers up until today. He may not have been dealing with some of the weird anti-drag BS going on today, but Eltinge was keenly aware of how he was perceived. He may well have been gay, but if so he was well closeted and reacts strongly against Tanguay’s suggestion that he’s anything but straight.
No one knows for sure what went on between these two in that dressing room before they went on, but in Neuman’s version of the story, they gradually trot out all of their misgivings not only about the marriage but about their lives as performers as well. There’s plenty of sex on the stage, but it’s not between these two. Gender roles are explored in depth, and as Tanguay continually tries to push Eltinge into a “fairy” corner, he grows increasingly angry until it’s not even clear the wedding will happen. Meanwhile, her bullying smacks more of toxic masculinity than it does that of the harpy, and when they do finally go onstage, she apparently takes it one step further.
We don’t get to see the wedding, but in the aftermath, Eltinge calls Tanguay a “monster” while she accuses him of going off script. Whether it would’ve been a real or a show-biz wedding, there’s no question that the yawning gap between the two would negate any chance of partnership.
As someone obsessed with counting her media mentions, Tanguay is highly recognizable compared to today’s celebrities tallying up their followers. Money will always be more important to her than any art, and as someone who was making over $100,000 a week in today’s dollars in her heyday, it’s hard to argue with her approach.
But for Eltinge, the art is the point and the money secondary. The idea that these two conflicts got worked out in front of a live audience is titillating to be sure, and Neuman’s master stroke is to leave it out of the script and let us infer what happened in the aftermath.
As the play winds down, both get a chance in solo numbers to plead their case. Rill kills with “Ev’ryone Was Meant for Someone,” and to close out the show, Moore brings down the house with Tanguay’s signature song “I Don’t Care.” It’s a devastating performance that left the audience momentarily stunned. As the lights came up for the curtain call, it was for a well-deserved standing-O.
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