Lustre, a Midwinter Trans-Fest

BOND FOR LIFE The trans-fabulous soloist hits a high note.

Photograph: Adrian Buckmaster

Best known as the “female” half of the outrageous lounge duo Kiki & Herb, cross-dressing raconteur and rabble-rouser Justin Bond leaves his alter ego at the sanitarium for his latest glitter-encrusted extravaganza. An eclectic collection of songs and stories about life as a trans person, he created the show after winning P.S. 122’s 2007 Ethyl Eichelberger Award. Like the award’s namesake, a late drag icon, Bond mixes high camp, haute couture and heady references, namechecking everyone from Jean Genet to JonBenet and Lillian Hellman. The effect is dizzying, riotous and unexpectedly moving.

Lest anyone confuse Lustre with the touchy-feely confessionals that solo artists are wont to do, the evening is filled with tall tales punctuated by blunt observations, some borrowed from Kiki’s repertoire. When recounting a particularly passionate love affair with a man who lived in a cardboard box by a highway, Bond admits that he “had a touch of the ’tard.” In another manic monologue, Bond shares his original concept of the show—Joan Didion buying a dress for Charles Manson conspirator Linda Kasabian and ultimately bringing Dorothy’s ruby slippers to Anne Frank—which he dismissed because it sounded “too ambitious.” The numbers are where things get serious. Backed by a flute, cello and musical director Our Lady J’s virtuosic piano playing, the performer belts out raw tunes of longing and self-reflection. These moments of vulnerability are powerful and prove that, for all of Bond’s superficial fabulousness, his emotional nakedness is what makes him fierce.

—Raven Snook