James Beaman
Black Market Marlene Unveiled
By Jim Caruso

Regardless of the rather ironic demands of James Beaman's last name hoists upon him (Be-a-man!), this born-and-bred Bostonian is proud as hell to drag out the wig and lipliner.  He first stormed the Manhattan club scene with his dead-on impersonation of Lauren Bacall in Bacall: By Herself.  He then bolted from one cool cuke to another, conjuring up Marlene Dietrich in a concert called Queen of the World.  Audiences were smitten, awards were awarded, and James ended up with a Back Stage Bistro Award, a Cabaret Hotline's Critic's Choice Award and a MAC nomination for Outstanding Impersonation.

Well, get ready to fall in love again because the demon Beaman is back!  Black Market Marlene, his award-winning show at Eighty-Eight's has ventured a few blocks uptown to Judy's Chelsea Cabaret.  This act pays tribute to the legend in her early Hollywood years.  Even if you've missed Blonde Venus on the late, late show you'll recognize the look -- lemon yellow curls tucked ever so carefully into a silk topper, and a suit of tails so razor-sharp in fit and style you'll swear you hear Fred Astaire applauding somewhere.  It's a glossy Hurrell photo come to life.   Accompanied by David Maiocco on piano, Tpony Lauria on accordion and Mary Rodriguez on drums, Beaman channels the charming, daring blonde Fridays at 11 PM from October 1 through November 19.  Recently, over coffee and apple strudel, James Beaman had a lot to say about prejudice. personal power and plucking.

Jim Caruso Let's start at the very beginning! How did Black Market Marlene come about?

James Beaman I was doing Lauren Bacall at the Blue Angel in a La Cage review.  the owner of the Blue Angel (obviously a Dietrich fan) asked me if I did other impersonations.  The only other star who interested me was Marlene!  I did one number and it gave me a taste for something that I felt could be very dimensional. I thought it would be interesting to do an impression straight, instead of commenting on it.  All the comments made about Marlene have been made by far better comedians than I.  Madeline Kahn did it!   Honestly, that's not what I thought was interesting about Dietrich.  I wanted to go deeper.  My approach has always been to look at as an acting role.  The gender thing seems incidental.  It's not about having a deep desire to dress up in women's clothes!  The particular energy of this character, the magic she had as a live performer is something I wanted to see if I could channel.  So I developed a show with Ricky Ritzel called Queen of the World and only did 8 performances.   It won a Bistro Award and developed a lot of interest.  It took two years to develop this show, which we debuted at Eighty-Eight's.  All of a sudden, last fall, I woke up knowing exactly what the show should be!  It was instantly crystallized... even the song list was birthed fully formed!

JC Is the intimacy of the clubs you play a help or hindrance?

JB I wanted to do Marlene as she was in her film cabaret performances.  In almost every case, she's never separated from the audience.  She was always in and around the audience, touching them, teasing them, working with them, moving through them.  I thought it would be the perfect way to do it.  So the New York clubs have been perfect for me.  I also wanted to do it in top hat and tails, Dietrich had such fun with the gender issue so I wanted to also.   I wanted to be a man doing a woman doing a man!

JC I'm so struck by the immense amount of detail in your performance!

JB I'm a research whore!  Most of my shows have taken a year or two to gestate.  I feel a huge responsibility not only to whom I'm impersonating, but also to my own work and my reputation as an actor.

JC Did you use a director for the show?

JB Black Market Marlene was basically self-directed but I do have two acting coaches I work with on acting values, pacing, shaping... and I really respect their opinions.  I also can't say enough about David Maiocco, my musical director.  He has much respect for what we're doing and we have such mutual admiration for each other.  It creates an incredible working environment.

JC I hate to even ask but is there any negativity or prejudice towards someone who does a performance piece like yours?

JB Unfortunately, yes.  More so than ever!  Certainly not from the audience, but in the theatrical industry, yes.  As an actor, the only things I get called for now are drag roles or gay roles.  I was warned not to do a show like this and I had a lot of dark nights of the soul and a lot of struggle.  But I stand behind it 100%.   There are lots of well-meaning people in the industry who will warn you what not to do so that you will be palatable and marketable.  Very few will tell you what you can do to be successful because they don't know.  I've been in New York seven years and in that time I've done Shakespeare, musicals, children's theater and have worked off-Broadway as an understudy -- everything from Genet to Gurney!  As an actor, you spend all your training years developing the flexibility to do everything.  Then you finally get in the business.  If you're lucky you find one thing you do well, and they want you to do it over and over.  It's anti ethical to the creative process!   To play one sonata again and again... no musician would tolerate it!  I believe in creative freedom.  I believe in personal power!  You have to own what you do, believe in what you do, live up to our own standards and your own ethics.  If what you're doing illuminates something, brings out truth, excites, entertains and moves people, then you're successful.  Peoples' arbitrary hollow prejudices cannot be given that kind of power.  Fifteen minutes into my show, people forget I'm a man.   They are seeing Dietrich and by the end of the show they feel like they've had a visitation with her.  That's when I feel I've done my job!  It's OK for Bobby Morse to play Truman Capote or Anthony Hopkins to play Nixon, but the minute you cross the gender line they think you're a cross dresser or there's something perverted going on.   I doubt very much if the cast of Cats goes home and drinks milk out of a saucer!

JC (Laughing) How does all this color what your next step will be?

JB I have a feeling that I'll be doing Marlene for a while.  I love performing in cabarets but everyone knows it's a hard place to make a living.  I'm greedy!  I want to perform eight shows a week.   My agenda all along has been to create a theater piece as Dietrich.  I know there's an audience for it.  And I think the Kit Kat club would be a perfect space for me.  I want it to be the Beatle-mania of drag!  I see Black Market Marlene as the first act, and the second act would be a re-creation of her show at the Café de Paris. That was the London nightclub in 1954 when Nöel Coward introduced her.  Opening night, everybody was there -- Lawrence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Roddy McDowell, Princess Elizabeth...

JC Have you always been such a huge Dietrich fan?

JB It was nurture rather than nature I guess.  My parents are both in the theater and my mother's favorite performers were Piaf and Dietrich.  Growing up, I was surrounded by Dietrich books pictures and albums but I never thought about being a fan until I decided to tackle her.

JC You only sing as Marlene.  You never speak.  Why?

JB I feel the songs themselves take you on an emotional journey.  Plus, Dietrich wasn't a chatty person.  Personally, I find biographical shows boring.  They're inactive.  Any smart person can read a bunch of books about somebody and write a monologue with a lot of factual information.

JC You have a very musical background but you've made your name portraying Bacall and Dietrich, two women not particularly known for their lilting vocal prowess!?

JB A lot of people insist that Dietrich had a terrible singing voice but she was actually very musical.  She was a concert violinist!  She also played the musical saw to entertain the troops.  She had an amazing sense of phrasing.  To be honest though, the reason I'm doing women is because I'm a baritone!  I don't have an instrument like Steven Brinberg (Simply Barbra) with that amazing falsetto.  But people think of Dietrich in the wrong way.   They remember her as a frozen ice statue with a monotone voice which she was not.

JC Well, I guess a lot of impersonators have gone for the obvious laugh and that has stayed with us?

JB I wanted to bring out her vivacity and the love she radiates to the audience.  She was affectionate, charming and a very generous performer.

JC Dietrich was a total original.  She had no one to look to as an inspiration for her persona.  Today, someone like Madonna might look to Dietrich.  Who inspires you?

JB Oooh!  There was a point when Madonna was considering re-making Blue Angel.  Dietrich was asked what she thought of this and said, "When I did the role, I played vulgar.  Madonna IS vulgar."

JC Yikes!

JB Dietrich was a totally self-made person.   She invented the name "Marlene!"  It wasn't even a name!  She knew she had something special.  She also drew on some of the most brilliant minds of the day.  Josef von Sternberg was her mentor; Mae West was a great friend.  My idols are the transformational actors, Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Lawrence Olivier, Lon Chaney - real character actors who embody roles from the inside out, and the outside in.   That's what I want to do.  I want to transform.  A few years from now maybe the frocks will go into a drawer...  I'll start pumping iron and do completely different kinds of roles!  I'd like that kind of freedom.  I've never been one to blend.  I'm not a chorus person.  I've been able to do The Mystery of Irma Vep, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, Solange in The Maids, all big juicy challenging roles.  But if I'm not getting the roles, then I need to create my own show!

JC I was rather impressed that you sing in three languages as Marlene.

JB Luckily I studied German in high school.   I was very good at it, partly because I had a crush on my German teacher!   Marlene also sang in French.  These languages were all a huge part of her performances.  But I wanted Dietrich's pronunciation!  So when you hear me sing a French song, it's French with a German accent!

JC By day you're a make-up artist.  I've rarely seen such precision in a cosmetic re-creation of a face!  Tell me about your technique and preparation.

JB First I put some Dietrich music on the stereo.  Make-up wise, I have to contour in a lot of the planes of her face.   But my eye area adapts very well to hers and I've found that the one area that makes me into Dietrich is the mouth.  She had a way of painting and holding her mouth that was uniquely hers.

JC And those amazing eyebrows?  Do you pluck yourself into a frenzy?

JB Not at all!  I think one of the things that makes some people leery of female impersonators is what they look like out of drag.  I'm an actor.  I don't want to pluck my eyebrows and I don't want to shave my legs.  If you can't bring about an illusion through artifice, then maybe you should find something else to do!  It is a bitch, though. There are times when I come from a show to an empty apartment and spend the next hour and a half taking off the nails, the paint and the eyebrow wax.  It can be a lonely thing.  

JC Have you taken Marlene outside of New York?

JB No!  But I did a production of The Maids as Solange in Vermont, of all places!  The audience really went with it.   I think it's all about your intentions.  If you go in thinking that what you're doing is scandalous or will make people feel uncomfortable, it will!  I always try to give my audience the benefit of the doubt.  This country is very uptight about sex and sexuality.  You can diffuse that with your integrity.  You have to think it out.  I spent years deciding how I felt about it.  I had my own demons and problems with it all.  You have to decide why you're doing something.  Cabaret is an amazing medium.  It's a way for people like me with no money and a lot of talent to be seen by an audience.  And there's a press who will come and see you.   For some cabaret producers in town to exclude what I do from their programs is insane.  Cabaret is to the 90s what Vaudeville was to the 20s.  Steven Brinberg has been at Don't Tell Mama almost every Saturday for four years!  It's amazing!   He's a very smart cookie!  Anybody who can get an audience week after week deserves respect.  That's all we want.  We just want to work.  And to feel like we did it.