Hot Coco spices up Golden Girls in 18th year
ABOVE: The cast of The Golden Girls Live: The Christmas Episodes at the Victoria Theatre includes (from left) Coco Peru as Dorothy, Holotta Tymes as Sophia, D’Arcy Drollinger as Rose and Matthew Martin as Blanche.
BELOW: Martin, Peru, Tymes and Drollinger catch up on their People reading. Photos by Gareth Gooch
This time of year you have your Christmas Carols and your Nutcrackers. Here in San Francisco we have those, but we also have our own traditions. Now in its 18th year, The Golden Girls Live: The Christmas Episodes is one of our homegrown best.
This year's installment at the Victoria Theatre comes with a tinge of sadness. This is the first production without the late, great Heklina, one of the driving forces behind the show and also one its stars. She played Dorothy Zbornak, the role created in the original TV sereis by Bea Arthur. So who to fill those large (in every sense) shoes?
That's where the good news comes in. Drag legend and comedy dynamo Miss Coco Peru is now playing Dorothy, and she is superb. It probably helps that Coco was friends with Heklina and Bea Arthur, but she brings her own deft comic timing and inimitable stage presence to the part and absolutely shines. Dry and droll and funny as hell, Coco is the golden gift we all need this holiday season.
Another highly enjoyable aspect of this holiday outing – two episodes from the long-running series, this year they are "From Here to the Pharmacy" from 1991 and "Goodbye Mr. Gordon" from 1992 – is the wildly different styles of the performers. D'Arcy Drollinger (San Francisco's first drag laureate, thank you very much) directs and co-stars as Rose Nyland (the Betty White) part, and the acting style could best be described as shameless mugging – and it's hilarious.
Holotta Tymes is Sophia Petrillo, Dorothy's mother, and Tymes is so spot-on in the re-creation of Estelle Getty's indelible characterization that it's almost like we're seeing the real thing. And then there's Matthew Martin, long one of San Francisco's treasures, as Blanche Devereaux. He takes a little of original star Rue McClanahan and amps up the character with sexpot elements borrowed from every great movie star diva from the 1940s.
The star performers – the Girls, if you will – are experts at squeezing laughs from the sitcom script, but they also seem to be having a ball, laughing at each other and encouraging boisterous audience response. It also helps that the scripts themselves can be laugh-out-loud funny. Some of Dorothy's lines, especially as delivered by the delectable Coco, are devastatingly funny. My favorite from the first act is, "I'll say hail Marys until Madonna has a hit movie." That's followed closely by Sophia saying she's saving money for her old age, to which Dorothy gasps, "Old age? You don't leave fingerprints anymore!"
As in previous years, during the transition moments when there would be commercials on the show, the live version hands the stage over to Tom Shaw for rousing holiday sing-alongs. The raucous songs combined with flowing cocktails from the bar (in the lobby and in the theater before the show and during intermission) gives the even the feel of a Christmas party on the verge of exploding. For my money, this time of year if you're searching for festivity, that's just the kind of place you want to be. Thank you for being a friend, indeed.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes continues through Dec. 23 at the Victora Theatre, 2961 16th St., San Francisco. Tickets are $40-$75. Running time: 2 hours and 30 minutes. Visit goldengirlslive.com for tickets and info.