The World's First Concert Pianist/Drag Diva

Je m'appelle Jacqueline ("Ma Vie c'est la Vie")

Don't Tell Mama, 2/6/00

Jacqueline Jonée, Eiffel Tower of Talent
by Bruce-Michael Gelbert

Fabulous drag piano virtuosa, and diva par excellence Jacqueline Jonée,  was "on" indeed for the February 6 opening of her show "Je m'appelle Jacqueline," subtitled "Ma Vie c'est la Vie," which runs for a month-and-a-half of Sunday evenings at Don't Tell Mama. Assisting artists were Mary Rodriguez on percussion and Jason Tobias DiMatteo on string bass.  Direction was by Brett Oberman. The first night was a benefit for the New York City Gay Men's Chorus, for which the diva's alter ego, John Nieman, sings baritone.

A vision in white with silvery accents, Jaqueline began by leading her  fans in a few key Gallic vocalizations--"oh-la-la" and so on--and declared,  in song, "And Now You're Speaking French." Bathed in a blue spotlight, she  probed the poignant tragedy of "walking solitary boulevards of life."  Playing "J'ai deux amours," la Jonee examined her bi-national allegiance, to her native Canada--"I put the sass in Saskatchewan," said she--and her beloved France. She looked at the phenomenon of French goods produced "Only for Americans" and liberally sprinkled her effort with quotations from "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy," "Frère Jacques," the "Star Spangled Banner," the "Marseillaise," and "God Bless America." She continued with a wistful "I  Wonder Who's Kissing Him Now," in English and in French as "Qui a ses baisers  maintenant."

Embellishing her garb with red gloves and boa and quoting Jean-Paul Sartre and strains of the Habanera from "Carmen," the diva told a sizzling tale of love, Spanish-style, in "Your Kiss of Fire," which she dubbed her "last tango in Paris." A dizzying, driven tour de force was Jacqueline's Jacques Brel carousel song ("We're on a carousel, a crazy carousel"), which left the listener reeling.

Donning breast plate and helmet, topped with a towering tricolor of  feathers, for a patriotic moment, she paid tribute to her ancestor, the  virtuous "Veronique, " who "start[ed] the Franco-Prussian War," in a number from Cy Coleman, Betty Comden and Adolph Green's "On the Twentieth Century."   Making a quick switch into a tutu for a terpsichorean interlude, Jacqueline struck balletic attitudes and offered high kicks from the piano bench and--incorporating such topical variations as "if a boy in the Pines with a tan can" and "if a butch and a femme lesbian can"--observed "(then) You Can Cancan, Too."

The artist's breathtaking, wrenching finale was Charles Aznavour's proud and frank song of trangender identity and liberation, "What Makes a Man a Man." In a revealing showgirl costume for a first encore, she limned a seductive, unforgettable evening at the "Folies-Bergère." A symphony in black, she then concluded with her own witty pianistic take on George Gershwin's "I've Got Rhythm."