With Christmas season in full swing, we can’t think of a better way to put all the holiday chaos into perspective than with John Waters.
The out director, author and mastermind behind such underground and mainstream classics “Pink Flamingos,” “Hairspray” and “Crybaby” is coming to town with his critically acclaimed one-man show “A John Waters Christmas,” which is sure to inject some of his trademark filth into the festivities as he explores the traditional holiday rituals and his unhealthy love of real-life holiday horror stories.
Walters will appear at 8 p.m. at the Trocadero Theatre, 1003 Arch St.
Fortunately for us, we were deemed naughty enough to hold a conversation with the cult cinema icon about the holidays and the places his reputation as a pop-culture pioneer has taken him.
PGN: What is it that made you want to do a one-man show about Christmas? JW: It’s such an extreme time that brings out emotional lunacy and desperation or happiness and excitement in people, so you can’t ignore it. So I figured I’d try to give advice to make every person be able to get through Christmas no matter how you feel about it.
PGN: Every year, right-wingers crawl out of the woodwork complaining about the war against Christmas. Are they talking about your show? JW: No, I don’t think they would be. The Christmas tree is a pagan symbol. I praise part of the religious things of Christmas because I find them so exceedingly crazy. I’ve always said about religion, I don’t care what you believe in as long as you don’t make me do it. I sometimes stalk religious things just to watch them. I remember Divine used to go to midnight Mass in drag to see if he could pull it off. Only the children gave him weird looks. They knew. PGN: Is the show you’re doing based on your own experiences during the holidays or those of others? JW: Both. I talk about all extremes of Christmas, about what’s happened to me, what my good and bad memories are, how I think you should deal with every problem, gift-giving, what I want for Christmas if you’d like to buy me something and what I’d like to give you.
PGN: Do the audiences for your Christmas shows behave themselves or is there a lot of audience participation during the performance? JW: They’re both. They’re respectful. I never get hecklers. The only problem I ever get is a fan that is too overzealous that got there really early and is drunk, and everything I say for the first few minutes they go crazy on, even though it is not that funny. And then they pass out. So that’s OK. But people have been great. I have great audiences.
PGN: What are some of your favorite Christmas movies? JW: There’s only one I really love. It’s called “Christmas Evil.” It’s about a man who one day is looking in the mirror while shaving and thinks, Hey, I look like Santa Claus. And then he becomes obsessed with being Santa Claus and gets a job in a toy factory. Then he starts spying on little children and keeping record on if they were good and bad. He gets stuck in someone’s chimney because he’s insane. But the children think he’s real and protect him against the parents who have formed a lynch mob. So it’s kind of a lovely movie.
PGN: In your opinion, what is necessary for an ideal holiday experience? JW: The ideal holiday experience is you have a truce with relatives that we’re going to think before we say anything so we don’t push each other’s buttons. I’ve always recommended giving out verbal-abuse whistles. So if anybody feels that someone is not following those rules, you blow the whistle. PGN: Was Christmas ever warm and fuzzy for you? JW: “Fuzzy” is not a word I’ve ever said out loud until now. Christmas is a good time. Now I have 16 Christmas shows. So basically I’m like a drag queen on Halloween. If it’s Christmas, I’m working. I have an annual Christmas party that I’ve had for 40 years. It’s everybody from the singing asshole from Pink Flamingos to the mayor and governor and a criminal that served 28 years that I taught in jail and the judge that sentenced him. It’s a very varied guest list. It’s my turn this year to cook Christmas dinner for my entire family. So I do that two days after my party and I go to San Francisco for New Year’s, where I have an apartment. It’s pretty traditional, even my decorations. I have a wreath on the door that looks traditional but it’s made out of sticker bushes so it pricks you and grabs you when you come in the door. I have the Unabomber birdhouse on my Christmas mantle. We have the electric chair from “Female Trouble” that we decorate like a Christmas tree. So it’s all the usual Christmas trappings with a twist.
PGN: With your movies and TV shows like “The Wire” being so popular, do you think Baltimore’s image suffers in popular culture? JW: No. I think it’s the opposite. Wherever I go in the world, the first thing people bring up is “The Wire.” I’ve told the governor this, who hated “The Wire.” I tell him that it is the most loved TV show by intellectuals around the world. The smartest people love it. Not everybody loves tall ships. I fucking hate tall ships. There are all parts of Baltimore. Barry Levinson’s films are about anti-Semitism or ecological disasters. Mine are about serial-killer mothers. “The Wire” is about extreme behavior in West Baltimore. We all love the extremes of Baltimore. That’s what we make movies about. That’s why it is such an interesting city. Not because of Harborplace, which is now empty because no one went there.
PGN: Do you have any insights into how younger fans are introduced to your work? JW: That’s mostly what I have, younger fans. I go all the time to colleges and every year they get younger and younger as I get older and older, which is the best thrill ever. I don’t know. They’ve seen all the movies and they weren’t even born when I made these movies. I’m thrilled by that. Today, everywhere in the world you can easily get a movie. You can get them no matter where you live. When I was young, you had to go to a city that shows specialized films. Now everybody in the world is cool. You can get anything you want in two minutes. A lot of them told me their parents showed my films to them, which is illegal in many states.
PGN: Does the continued success of the “Hairspray”-related projects make it easier if you wanted to make more movies? JW: No. I can’t get my movie made now. What makes it always hard is how the last movie I did got an NC-17 rating and it did not do so well, even though I’m quite fond of it. That’s fine. I just tell stories. I got paid to do a development deal to do “Fruitcake,” which is my children’s Christmas movie. But then the recession happened and now they are looking for movies like they used to make that cost $50,000 on your cell phone. I did that. I’m not doing that again. My last book, “Role Models,” was a best-seller and I’m writing the new book where I hitchhiked across America by myself in May. It’s called “Carsick.” So that’s my next big project.
PGN: Were there any surprisingly crazy moments on your hitchhiking trip? JW: I’m not going to tell you. That’s in the book. The first third is me imagining the 15 best rides I could have ever gotten, with sex and adventure. The next part is the 15 worst rides I ever could have gotten, which obviously ends in my death, and I wrote that the day before I did it for real. I had 21 rides in seven days. I would say a third of the drivers knew who I was but only one didn’t drive past me, debate if it was me and come back and pick me up. The next third pulled over to give me money thinking I was homeless and then realized it was me and started screaming. That last third, when I told them it was me, acted like I said I was Napoleon. Beyond that, you’re going to have to read the book. PGN: Do you think it is harder to shock audiences these days? JW: I wouldn’t know because I have never just tried to do that. I tried to make you laugh and use wit to surprise you. It’s easy to be shocking and I think Hollywood tried too hard to be shocking these days, and except for a few great cases like “Bridesmaids” and “The Hangover,” they are not very funny. I’m trying to surprise you. If I had tried to top the ending of “Pink Flamingos” when that came out, I would be working today.
Catch “A John Waters Christmas” 8 p.m. at the Trocadero Theatre, 1003 Arch St. For more information or tickets, call 215-922-6888.