[OutVoice] Eugene, OR: "A glimpse at gay icons"

[TheChorusBoy at aol.com]

OREGON DAILY EMERALD

A GLIMPSE AT GAY ICONS
Jade Esteban Estrada performed a solo comedic show depicting six significant 
figures in gay history

By PHILIP OSSIE BLADINE
March 8, 2006 

 
Jade Esteban Estrada portrays gay Irish playwright and poet Oscar Wilde 
during his performance in the EMU Ballroom on Tuesday night.  

Photo by HASANG CHEON

Read it online:
http://www.dailyemerald.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/03/08/440eafe59839d


Beauty. Art. Flamboyance. Love. Struggle. Fame.

All these things are part of lesbian and gay history as represented by Jade 
Esteban Estrada's "ICONS: The Lesbian and Gay History of the World, Vol.1." 
Estrada performed his solo comedy and musical show Tuesday night in the EMU 
Ballroom, in which he depicted six historic and modern-day lesbian and gay icons: 
Sappho, Michelangelo, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Rivera and Ellen 
DeGeneres. 

Estrada won awards in both singing and stand-up comedy early in his career 
before he turned his attention to the solo theater format in September 2002 when 
"ICONS, Vol. 1" debuted. 

While the performance is packed with factual history and cultural and 
political commentary, Estrada said in an interview his one goal for the show is to 
entertain.

"It's one thing to tell a story, and it's quite another to be entertaining at 
the same time," Estrada said. "As a modern vaudevillian, which is what I 
consider myself to be, it's very tough. My competition is today's  television."

"Estrada's stand-up experience showed through witty one-liners in the 
performance. After singing "The Tenth Muse" while dressed as Sappho, Estrada told the 
crowd how Sappho plays the lyre.

"I'm so happy you all have lyres in your time! No, really I think it's just 
wonderful. I just don't understand why you put them in the White House," 
Estrada said.

While playing the character of Italian artist Michelangelo, Estrada sung 
about the artist's most famous statue. "David is the perfect man, if only he could 
hold my hand, he'd be wonderful." He then turned to crowd and whispered 
loudly, "he's be fucking hot!" 

The show touched on many aspects of gay and lesbian issues throughout world 
history. He covered ancient times such as the first allegation of homosexuality 
in 1116, said the a love of two boys was beautiful in Samurai culture and 
talked about the execution of gay men in 1703 in Prussia. 

Oscar Guerra, a master of ceremonies at the event along with Cree Gordon, 
said he liked that the performance combined history with comedy.

"Those identified as LGBTQ do have a history," Guerra said.

Each character Estrada depicted had a message for the crowd about human 
culture and unity. I believe that mankind is beautiful in all forms, and that is 
the word of God," Estrada said while portraying Michelangelo. To love oneself is 
the beginning of a lifelong romance" he said as Wilde.

"To have this to educate all people makes it easier for myself to be out as a 
queer person," Gordon said.

Gordon said his favorite character was American writer and poet Gertrude 
Stein. Estrada quoted some of her famous lines, including "a rose is a rose is a 
rose." 

Dressed as Stein in her old age, Estrada asked the crowd whether a pink 
triangle meant anything to them, and said that it means a lot to some. "A pink 
triangle was the mark of homosexuality in Nazi prison camps," he said portraying 
Stein. "No one really knows what happened to them...one day they just all 
disappeared. "It's not a gay thing...it's a human thing."

Estrada also delighted the crowd with depictions of Sylvia Rae Rivera, a 
Puerto Rican transgender person who some credit as being the first to strike back 
at police, and stand-up-comedian-turned-sitcom-star-turned-talk-show-host 
Ellen DeGeneres.

The performance was put on by the Multicultural Center, MEChA and the 
Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Transgender Queer Alliance.

http://www.getjaded.com