review: harold and st claude

Harold and Saint Claude  
Review by Dorian Hatchett

In theatre, we seek truth. The universal human experience, writ large in lights and choreography.  Those of us who spend a lot of time in dark auditoriums, though, we know a secret. The secret is pain. That great equalizer that pulls every successful script together, that unites every frenzied backstage quick-change, or last second lightboard fix is pain. The shoes that don’t quite fit and the rehearsals late into the night on twisted ankles and costumes that pinch. Play through the pain.  And if you do it just right, and all those elements coalesce, it’s magic. You get to make the audience feel that pain, too.  

If the universal human experience is pain, then the exceptional human experience is joy. Across thousands of years of human history, we repeat ourselves, with the same casual cruelties and tragedies big and small.  Again and again, the man made horrors persist. We can draw parallels, and translate across cultures, and the pain is all so poignant, and true.  But in the periphery of pain lies joy, and the people who are exceptional, who perpetuate it, despite knowing far too much about the flip side of their shiny coins.  

Harold and Maude, a movie that premiered in 1971, to a loathsome critical response, is a dark comedy about death, and the life that people may choose in spite of it. It rose to cult status several years after its initial debut, where it remains to this day. An exaggerated may-december romance, Harold Chaisson is a very young man who is obsessed with death. Maude is an old woman who has seen death, and has chosen instead to live in every sincere sense of the word. At its root, it’s the story of generation separation from tragedy. Maude is a Holocaust survivor, and Harold is too young to understand what that means.  The film coalesces with Maude choosing to embrace death on her own terms, and Harold, horrified, finally understands her lessons completely.  

In Harold and Saint Claude, we move the settings forward two decades, and to New Orleans, where young, sheltered Harold is still death obsessed, but is struggling with his sexuality in addition to his desire to feel anything at all in a life dominated by his overbearing mother. Doing perfect justice to the original material, director and adaptor Thugsy DaClown honors the struggles of youth and attachment, while shaping the motivations of the characters to a slightly more modern struggle. 

Saint Claude is an aging drag queen who has seen the worst parts of the rise of the AIDS epidemic, has not remained untouched herself by the virus, and has chosen to live, despite the ticking clock she feels over her own life. Like many people affected by the virus in the time before effective treatment, dying by choice is preferable to wasting away alone at the end, and she must teach Harold how to live before her life ends, on her 66th birthday. 

Bizzy Barefoot, in the role of Saint Claude, is stunning. She conveys the joy and heartache of aging, the fear and elation of being alive in every moment, in a way that had the audience hanging on her every word and grand gesture. Rose Falvey as Harold is earnest; the folly of youth personified, and the agony of watching them learn these hardest lesson is palpable and uncomfortable. 

The entire supporting cast is superb, a comic relief beacon in the darkness.  As the play reaches its climax, there’s not a dry eye in the house. They were reciting a script, but the audience found the truth inside of themselves, and it spilled out in laughter and tears.  

It would be a grave error not to comment on the presentation style. The director created an immersive experience, with a live band covering and adapting popular music and an accompanying film reel to add depth and scenery to an already vibrant set. At the end, filing out full of smiles,  it can be safely assumed that the audience felt another altogether different universal human experience: wanting more.

Harold & St Claude plays at The AllWays Lounge on August 25th & 26th. Click here for ticketing and more information.