Photo: Peter Palladino
Coco Peru Takes Town Hall for Carnival
by Steve Desroches
Coco Peru walks the talk, and with that gorgeous, iconic Bronx accent, the City Island native really stomps. With her red flip-wig, Peru is not only an icon of drag, but also LGBTQ activism, eliciting laughs and marching towards progress since she made her debut in New York City in 1992 with the landmark show Miss Coco Peru in My Goddamn Cabaret. She has spent just as much time marching and protesting as she has in the spotlight over the years. After a move to Los Angeles, Peru seemed to dip a high heel into a state of semi-retirement, enjoying some down time and performing here and there. But times have changed…unfortunately. The state of the country, the chaos of the second Trump administration, the slide toward authoritarianism, and the assault on LGBTQ rights have Peru in a rage. Seeing decades of progress wiped away so quickly prompted Peru to search for where she could take action herself. So, she settled on what she does best, entertaining and organizing via joy, humor, and pride.
Peru is one of those LGBTQ leaders that doesn’t just make you proud to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, but you feel lucky to be so. She remembers the worst days of the HIV/AIDS crisis and when the idea of LGBTQ rights seemed a distant dream. It was a scary time, but what choice did anyone have? It was a time to stand tall, like it is now.
“My ambition and my goals were bigger than my fears,” says Peru about her early days. “I’m renewing that commitment now.”
With the prompting of her dear friend and drag colleague Varla Jean Merman, Peru got to work on a brand-new show, which she is taking to the stage in her first time at Provincetown Town Hall Friday of Carnival Week. But what to call it? She went through a bunch of names, but settled on the words that come out of her mouth most often these days: Fucq This Sh!t… with her adjusting the spelling so it could appear on posters and social media. Since the inauguration, Peru’s audiences have let her know how glad they are to see her back at it, and in particular, her transgender fans have expressed their fears and worries for their safety and future, and how great it was to have an ally and a show like Peru’s that inspires, emboldens, and also delivers big, big laughs.
Peru (Clinton Leupp out of drag) has been in Spain most of the summer, where her husband Rafael is originally from. She thought it would be a nice break from being in the United States with the, well you know, what the f–k news cycle. But upon arrival all she encountered were people asking her what was going on back in the States and how could this be happening. And the Spanish know fascism when they see it as they lived under a right-wing dictatorship from 1939 to 1975. But that died down and she was able to focus on writing monologues and jokes, one of the best ways to speak truth to power. She’d been working for months and then the show made its premiere in Spain…sort of.
“I’m about to go perform the whole show for my neighbors, two people,” laughs Peru. “I once did a show years ago in San Francisco for six people and it was a ball. If I can get two people to laugh, one who only kind of speaks English and the other that doesn’t really speak it at all, I’m going to kill at Town Hall.”
Peru has been killing it her whole career. With the success of RuPaul’s Drag Race, it could be too easy to take it for granted the place that drag has ascended to in the culture at large. But there was a time in the not-so-distant past that drag queens were complete pariahs, at times even within the more conservative elements of the LGBTQ community. But drag queens have been on the forefront of progress for LGBTQ rights since before Stonewall. When Peru was 20, she saw the film My Beautiful Laundrette and thought to herself that her dream was to be in a “gay movie,” to use an old-school term. And she did just that when she landed a scene stealing role in the 1999 film Trick, followed by the cult classic Girls Will Be Girls with Varla and Evie Harris. She also had spots in Wigstock: The Movie and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar as well as on TV in Will & Grace in projects that were all gay positive. She even shut down production on an episode of How I Met Your Mother, where after filming principal scenes they informed her that her character, a drag queen, was going to be straight amongst other odd choices. They had sexuality and gender so backward she refused to film, even when the director became red-faced with rage. But finally, the producers said, let her do whatever she wants, and they let her re-write the character.
“I don’t know where I found the gall to do it but I did,” says Peru. “The younger queens on the set were amazed. I always just wanted to be a role model. That’s why I always refused roles as a prostitute… but then I caved and played a prostitute. But I played I really fierce prostitute.”
Miss Coco Peru present Fucq This Sh!t at Provincetown Town Hall, 260 Commercial St., Friday, August 22 at 8 p.m. Tickets ($49-$139) are available online at rainboweg.com and at door the day of if not sold out. For more information call 404.664.1736.
