Beeman and co. please crowds in ‘Perform’

There was a drag queen in Hepburn Zoo April 22, 23 and 24. There was also a womanizing politician and a love struck songbird. Incidentally, they all happened to go by the name of Schuyler Beeman ’10, and they were part of his senior work, a collection of scenes and songs simply dubbed “Perform.”

“I wanted to play as wide a range of characters as possible,” Schuyler said. “I go from drag — Arnold, who is still a man, but with a woman’s façade — to Jimmy, the über masochist beating down women, and everything in between.”

Arnold greeted audience members at his dressing table, artfully stuffing his bra, meticulously applying eyeliner, smacking his lips and dabbing at the corners.

Schuyler’s portrayal of the drag queen (at one point he bragged that he had slept with more men than named in the Bible, Old and New Testament combined, and yet none of them had ever said “Arnold, I love you”) is rendered even more convincing by the scene that succeeds it, an excerpt from David Hare’s “The Blue Room” featuring a very straight, very suave politician and his put-upon wife.

The rest of the work meandered through a sort of meditation on the many definitions of masculinity.

Cassidy Boyd ’10, Casey Donahue ’10.5 and Teddy Andersen ’13.5 accompanied him.

“My primary goal was to play different characters, I wasn’t thinking about how to link them together,” he said. “I’ve spoken to people who feel while here they’ve been pigeonholed into only playing certain characters. Of course in the real world you’re type-cast, but in an academic setting, I want to play people who are not my type.”

He’s certainly succeeded. The denizens of his production flitted from a man who describes his wife as a “refined sort of butcher” to rapturous Fantasticks couple Matt and Luisa harmonizing on the perfection of their love.

It may be more accurate to term the work a meditation on performance itself — the program actually lists 10 definitions — culminating in an autobiographical piece in which Schuyler implores the audience, his friends, his family and his teachers simply, “Look at me.”

While he admitted to not having all the answers, and that he did not know quite what he wanted his audience to take away from the monologue, what he clearly did know is how to perform, both on and off-stage.

“A lot of my life is performed,” Schuyler said, reflecting on the piece.

“I love it, and sometimes I hate it. It’s been a fact of what Midd has made me. I came out here, and part of that was saying, ‘OK, I’m gay and I’m fine with it.’ It’s a small community, and everyone knows you, so I had to show people I was fine with it, but in doing that I feel I may have overdid it at times.”

Schuyler also used his autobiographic piece for impromptu thanks, to friends, to teachers and to family.

“I wanted to show them a little bit of myself,” he said. “To do that piece in front of my parents — it was terrifying.”

He is excited, however, to see the piece take on a life of its own.

“[I am] really interested in people’s response to the show in general,” he said. “It was not a normal 700. It’s normal to pick a show, do a show, and I was curious about how people would respond to this. I didn’t see that I was commenting on masculinity in every scene. The audience created something new.”