Champagne White and The Temple of Poon

D'Arcy Drollinger has finally produced a sequel to Shit & Champagne, her hit cult drag queen/blaxploitation movie/kung fu stage lampoon that has been bouncing around San Francisco for the last couple of years.



The final revival of the show was earlier this year at Oasis, the new nightclub at 11th and Folsom where Drollinger is a co-director/co-owner.



Like all the Hollywood trash sequels on which it is based, Champagne White and The Temple of Poon is simply Shit and Champagne remade with the same formula.



Instead of the original show's relentless scatalogy, a different orifice's secretions (see the title) are the focus of most of the evening's raunchy humor.



The plot follows a familiar pattern, complete with lots of groovy special-effects video. It involves a new drug which turns society completely insane, and a frame job of our stripper/professional dancer heroine for murder, which in this case gets her sent away to Lady Prison.



The characters and actors are also mostly the same, with the incomparable Matthew Martin (above center) as the evil Dixie somehow surviving her demise from S&C and reinventing herself as perfume magnate Pixie Pardonnemoi on her way to world domination.



The principal joy of the production is the interaction between performers and audience, most of whom are fans of the original show. When Mandy (above right), who functions rather like a 1970s "good girl martyr" version of Kenny on South Park, dies once again, the entire audience joined in a remarkable singalong of Barry Manilow's "Mandy." And when the actor/ess playing Mandy completely lost her lines in one scene, the ensuing improvisation between Diva D'Arcy and desperate player was one of the most spontaneously funny moments of the evening.



The real reason for this kind of theatre (take note, Patrick Vaz) is to create a communal lunge at the Dionysian. On that level, it is very much succeeding.