Review by Steve Desroches
Buckle up buttercup, because Nina West is taking the wheel for a rainbow-infused road trip with a tank full of sugar, a heart full of love, and a trunk full of laughs. A stand out from season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, who was voted Miss Congeniality, Nina West has become the country’s drag sweetheart with her commitment to kindness, inclusion, and activism. And over the past five years West has become a fan favorite here in Provincetown with her campy and clever musical drag shows that are an absolute delight and elicit smiles from ear to ear. From beginning to end you feel completely at home at a Nina West show. She’s pure joy. But these are difficult times, and chances are if you are at a drag show you find the current state of affairs troubling (and if you are at a drag show and are not concerned by the news then you need to really re-examine why you are there in the first place). It’s hard to find a bit of peace and celebration at the moment, which is exactly why Nina West’s Sugar in the Tank: A Big Gay Musical Adventure is the perfect antidote for
what ails the country.
Sugar in the Tank is a wonderful musical romp taking inspiration from a variety of things, like The Wizard of Oz, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, and even the 1980s sitcom Designing Women in one of the most brilliant moments in the show, resulting in a hilarious and heartfelt call to arms. It’s a veritable one-drag-queen Pride parade as West maneuvers out of her fictitious, homophobic hometown on an Oz-like quest to find the Technicolor world of love, happiness, and acceptance, while encountering all kinds of comedic challenges along the way. West manages to pull off quite a feat as while she doesn’t mention he who shall not be named directly, it’s clear who she is talking about. Over the years when he’s been brought up in other shows all the oxygen can leave the room as while the audience may be united in opposition, they usually want just an hour’s escape from the real world. But that doesn’t happen in West’s show. And there is a really funny lampooning of Georgia Congressional nut bag, Marjorie Taylor Greene, that has you crying from laughing rather than laughing to keep from crying. West delivers a full-on-frenzy of a drag show that is a pure magic. A native of Columbus, Ohio, West has always been community-minded and founded The Nina West Fund at the Columbus Foundation to raise funds for causes near and dear to her heart, which this summer includes Outer Cape Health Services, which has been hit hard by federal funding cuts, proving that she is a queen of and for the people.
Nina West’s Sugar in the Tank is at the Pilgrim House, 336 Commercial St., August 21 through September 4 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets ($40/$50/$75) are available at the box office and online at pilgrimhouseptown.com. For more information call 508.487.6424.
