Calgary drag icon Carly York Jones is marking a major milestone. November 4th she will celebrate eight years as a regular performer at Inglewood’s Village Cantina, the longest running drag show that can be seen today in Calgary.
The show features Carly, her fellow October cover girl Mercedes, and Chez in a two-hour show filled with comedy and performance. The shows are wildly popular, selling out 4 to 6 weeks in advance, simply through word of mouth.
“It is part impersonation, part comedy. I mostly do comedic stuff. Mercedes does a lot of comedy and quite a few impersonations, while Chez does more of the impersonations. That is why it works so well: three definite personalities that compliment each other,” Carly said. “The people that are involved in it are the reason for the success. The three of us that do the show work so well together and have very different performance styles and it works. It’s not offensive which is why people love it so much.”
Jones and Mercedes chatted with GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine just prior to the shoot for this month’s cover, on site at Screamfest. One of the interesting things about the show? That it is geared towards a straight audience.
“98% that come to the show are straight and I think they appreciate it a little more. Drag and gay has gone hand in hand for so many years, and gay people have seen it over and over again. It is a new industry for a straight audience because they don’t get to see it a lot and it is something new for them. You don’t have to work as hard to entertain a straight audience as you would a gay audience,” she said.
”I think the straight audience is open to more too. Just the simple fact that you can get dressed up like this on a Saturday night, look absolutely fantastic and move the way you do, they are just astounded,” Mercedes added. “We draw a mass selection of people from 18 to 85!”
Both performers gave examples of why they think the show has done so well.
“We may look really good in drag but we don’t try and pass as women. I don’t think if we tried to pass as women that the show would be as popular because it would make the audience feel uncomfortable, especially the men,” said Carly. “I find that when I have an audience that is a little bit butcher, like a bunch of 18 year old football players, I will actually butch up my act to make them more comfortable. I think the fact that we don’t try to pass, even if we could, they can take it in more.”
”I don’t [butch it up]! When it is a bunch of straight boys, the hemline goes up to my hip!” quipped Mercedes, adding “It is a safe environment for them to be in because they are not in a gay club or at a gay social event. We are going into their environment; the word gay doesn’t even come up much.”
They then explained the differences between playing a gay club and a straight audience.
“The environment, dynamic, and format are different. At a gay bar it is usually a bit of talking and number after number, half an hour and you are done. We are much more audience interactive, it is a huge part of the show. We spend more time in the audience then we do on stage,” said Carly. “ Even before the show we are warming them up from table to table. We open up the floor for a question period and they can ask any question they want to know about, right down to ‘where do we put it’. We are not shy about any of that, we will answer anything. Not truthfully,” she jokes, “but we will answer it.”
She then turned the question over to Mercedes, who apparently gets the really odd inquiries from the audience.
“I had one man ask if I had a hairy ass. Why they wanted to know that I don’t know. A British woman asked if I had sex with my tits on. ‘Yeah but I can put mine on my back.’”
“A lot of the questions are in jest but, they do ask a lot of serious questions like how do our families react or the difference between a transvestite and a drag queen. So we do get to educate,” Carly continued.
All three are established performers – Carly for 14 years, Chez 24 and Mercedes an shocking 25. I say shocking because she looks like she isn’t much older than 25. After all these years, what keeps them motivated to still put in all the effort to get dressed up and perform?
“The audience is huge. Reinventing yourself and coming up with new ideas, concepts, numbers and costumes. Something that gives you a little bit of a challenge,” said Mercedes.
Carly agrees. “I can be the most tired thing on a Saturday when I sit down in front of the make-up mirror and go, ugh I don’t want to do this. Once I get to the restaurant the excitement and energy the audience gives back to me, I feed off of it and it wakes me up, and I am up and ready for it,” she said, adding that she will be performing until the day she dies. “I will have that wheelchair and oxygen tank and be wheeled onstage if I need to. I don’t see any end for me at all, I have too much fun doing it. I have been putting on women’s clothes since as far back as my Mom can remember. I was four years old when the first picture was taken of me in a dress.”
Carly’s Angels
Saturday Nights, 9:30pm
Village Cantina in Inglewood/Club Paradisco
1413 – 9th Avenue SE
(403) 265-5739
