Pittsburgh CLO Cabaret offers a return engagement of Dixie's Tupperware Party, a highly interactive show where nothing is as it seems.
On one level, we're attending an honest-to-God Tupperware party, hosted by trailer trash Dixie Longate — a voluble Southern dame as fond of the wine in her adult sippy cup as she is of her non-stop entendres of both the double and single variety.
But Dixie's a performer as well, a salty, sassy broad, and this party is really an improv-ed 90-minute excuse to pull people from the audience and, a la Dame Edna, turn them into hilarious comic fodder.
Dame Edna's an apt reference since, on another level, Dixie is an illusion. She's really a drag creation written and performed by Kris Andersson. The character (and I'm abashed to say it took me forever to get the pun in her name) was thought up on a dare, and Andersson started hosting Tupperware parties in people's home as Dixie. He and she became such a success that a theatricalized version of the party eventually made it to New York, where he garnered a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance. The show has since toured the country and the world — and no wonder. Andersson's an extremely gifted comedian, and his ability to work a room, mining for comedy gold, is highly entertaining.
But even that may be an illusion since — to double back like an Escher drawing — Dixie's Tupperware Party is, in fact, a real Tupperware party. Each audience member is given a catalogue and, after the show, can place real orders for real Tupperware with Dixie in the lobby.
As it turns out, Andersson — as both himself and Dixie — is actually one of Tupperware's top sellers in the US and Canada ... reportedly moving $25,000 worth of what Dixie calls "fantastic plastic crap" each month.
So what's the truth, then, of this show? Is Tupperware how Andersson supports his theatrical career? Or is theater what he uses to support his Tupperware sales? I don't know the answer, but there are plenty of laughs while you try to work it out.
