Don’t forget to wash your Jean!!!
Drag thing and alien from a trash planet, Jean talks to us about warming up, blue-ing out and getting down in Jean.
I grew up in San Francisco, so I was surrounded by drag as a child – groups like the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, this iconic group of queer and trans nuns and activists.
I work a full time job. So often I'm like, oh I gotta do both these things in the same day! Sometimes I'll do a performance, and then go to my full time job, and I'll have a tinge of blue all over me and be like “Hello, students, please take me seriously. Don’t look at my hands!”
I love being prepared – I’m a Virgo – and I come from a technical performance background, so I’m quite methodical. I film myself obsessively. I have all these insane rehearsal videos of me in crazy denim outfits in my kitchen in the middle of the day on a Tuesday.
I wish I had, like, a cool ritual or breakfast I’d have, but I just make sure that I've slept properly the night before. I make sure I warm up my body, because the work that I do is really physical. Let that be a note to my students: warm up before your show!
It’s important because for most of the performance I’m in this is the position [Jean gets up, bends over double and starts walking on all fours like the body of a decapitated giraffe]. So if I don't warm up, I'm fucked. I know that if I'm warm and I feel in a good place, then I'm gonna to perform better in a very kind of technical baseline way.
I have this funny ritual before I go on stage: if I'm really nervous I give myself a hug. Drag is really silly but for me it’s also deeply vulnerable and scary, especially to have made something and then put it in front of a group of people: that’s so exposing. So if I'm really nervous I give myself a hug and promise myself that no matter what happens, I'm not gonna be mean to myself. Which is very California of me but it does the job.
Switching from being me to Jean… costume and makeup are obviously a large part of it. Jean is also, in addition to being a literal pair of jeans, a little creature. And so I do have – I hate to be such a drama school teacher about it – but I do have a set of movement vocabulary for when I’m in “Jean mode”.
Humans have this kind of wall of protection where they only show you a version of themselves that is socially acceptable. Whereas Jean is a true reactor. Jean is hyper-aware and also quite sensitive. There's something about switching on that part of yourself where I don't necessarily do it super consciously, but I just think to myself: it's time now. There’s an alertness or receptivity and openness to Jean. Jean likes to explore. Jean can get angry sometimes or sad, but I think Jean enjoys being around. Jean isn’t afraid of people.
I don’t feel like I have to check out the audience before a show. I do have this one act where I talk about tiny mullets so then I might want to identify where they are for when I deliver that line to the tiny mullet person. But also in queer spaces usually there's at least four…
I love to drink half a pint of Guinness immediately after the show. One half pint, because I'm a very busy person, so I can't be slamming drinks after every show or I’d be an alcoholic. But I do need a tiny little beer.
So I’ll have a tiny little beer as Jean and hang out for a bit. Then I retire to the dressing room and take off my full-body blue makeup. Sometimes I'll go out after the show, like if there's opportunities to Go Go for a bit. Or sometimes I'll bring a backup Jean outfit if we do go out, because I can't be wearing my actual Jean outfit to the club - it's not a cute outfit! It’s too crazy! I'm not gonna be pulling any cuties in my Jean attire, so I’ll bring another denim option to go out in. Not that I'm pulling cuties in that option, either, but whatever.
If I have makeup all over my body then I’ll apply an entire pack of baby wipes and some goo. Usually there’s this horrible crust of blue makeup around my eyes that’s left over. The problem with the blue colour is it just makes me look really ill, so if it's not entirely off I look really sick.
I either take an uber or night bus home depending on money, and will be lugging my large suitcase with me. When I get in I’m deeply and utterly exhausted. So I’ll leave my drag suitcase in the hallway, which really annoys my roommate Aimee – shout out to Aimee for being so hospitable! – but I just can't face lugging it up the stairs. I can’t! I can’t do it! It would be TOO MUCH! Then I immediately get into the shower, do a full body scrub and go to bed. There's nothing else left, I’ve got to get straight to bed.
Follow Jean on instagram to keep up to date with their denim debacles….
👀🎟👀 Just some self-recs from us this week. A pair of lovely shows taking place at UAD’s unofficial HQ London Hospital Tavern….
🍺Just Good Comedy, Wednesday 23 Oct hosted by the fizzily funny Lil Wenker
🎃Halloween But It's A Joke, Wednesday 30 Oct including an honestly stellar line up of Will Owen, Bella Hull, Ayode Bamgboye, Rosalie Minnitt, Lachlan Werner and Sarah Roberts.