Community Voices: Larynxa’s Scattered Passions
Our second Community Voices posting comes from Larynxa. Larynxa is an active member of our Totally ADD community, who shares her insights and inspirations with great style and wit. Look for her postings in the forum, where she stands out as a unique voice of support and strength.
I’m a magpie. If I walk into a huge room, and there is one single sequin, nestled deep into the shag carpeting, my eye will instantly find that sequin. Maybe it’s because my ADHD brain is attracted to sparkly things, or maybe it’s because I spent the first 10 years of my life watching TV variety shows where you didn’t even THINK of performing unless you were dripping in sequins and feathers.
“The Carol Burnett Show” had the best cast, the best writing, and the best costumes, and I absorbed it all, like a little sponge, from the time I was a baby. And I mimicked it. As soon as I could, I started building a collection of costumes—most of them sparkly and/or feathery. Some of them, I bought, but most of them, I had to make. But where to wear it?
Nowadays, there are only two places where that kind of high glamour still exists: the world of drag queens and the world of burlesque (the kind they used to do in the 1930s-1950s). You don’t think a woman can be a drag queen? Well, I was, and I even won a drag queen contest. But I found burlesque more appealing, so when I heard about a burlesque talent contest, I gave it a try, and won in the variety category!
I’m a singer of vaguely naughty songs, not an ecdysiast…though I do sometimes remove a glove or two, and I know how to twirl my tassels if I have to. I was in the first two Toronto Burlesque Festivals, and I’ll be performing in this year’s too (shameless plug: Thursday, July 22nd, 10:30 p.m., at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto).
I also do a one-hour cabaret show, singing in retirement homes, and at private parties. Though my repertoire there is very different from my burlesque repertoire, I wear the same gorgeous costumes, because most people never get to see things like that in person. When I perform, I treat it like my own personal Vegas lounge show. And I don’t just stand in front of the audience and sing; I have a wireless mic, so I go right out amongst them, and interact directly with them (as Tony Orlando used to do). It’s more fun for the audience, and more fun for me.
As much as I love getting dolled up in my costumes, I also love doing character voices, because you don’t need to worry about costumes or sets or lighting or anything. And it doesn’t matter what you look like; it’s what you sound like. I played a femme fatale and a cabin boy on the Hindenburg (in radio plays with Decoder Ring Theatre), and I voiced 31 different pieces of heavy machinery (in the 2004 series of the kids’ TV show, “Mighty Machines”).
I’ve just started doing monologues—though some would say that, with my motormouth, I’ve been doing them all my life (Thanks, ADHD!). I appear as a character from the mythical eastern European country of Kapustia, and I talk about life there. Then, in my capacity as the country’s poet laureate, I recite some of my very bad poems (another of my passions, I’m afraid). This went over so well at a girls’ afternoon out that Luba Goy (who was one of those girls) asked me to take her place at an event when she was double-booked. And THAT went over so well that she’s asked me to perform with her at two events in October! To think that, 26 years ago, I used to listen to her on the radio and wish that someday, I could perform with her.
Funny how things work out, isn’t it?
