John Waters' one-man show comes to the Wallis in Beverly Hills: 'I'm so respectable, I could puke'

Filmmaker, actor, writer and good-natured provocateur John Waters turned 79 this week. To celebrate, helium booked a circuit of a one-man show, “John Waters’ Birthday Celebration: The Naked Truth,” which stops astatine the Wallis successful Beverly Hills connected Saturday.

In beforehand of the large night, the Baltimore autochthonal talked with The Times astir what audiences tin expect. Waters didn’t privation to springiness distant his champion material, truthful the speech veered to see a assortment of topical subjects: wherefore President Trump volition neglect to marque resistance shows spell away; however touched helium was by a TikTok video made by Elon Musk’s transgender daughter, Vivian, successful which she quotes lines from Waters’ 1972 achromatic comedy, “Pink Flamingos”; and wherefore Melania Trump’s White House Christmas decorations enactment the last “nail successful the coffin of atrocious taste.”

“I yearn to beryllium banned again,” said Waters, lamenting that his books are by the beforehand doorway of bookstores alternatively than “by the existent transgression adjacent the bath oregon the cheery conception successful the back.”

His recent exhibition, “John Waters: Pope of Trash,” astatine the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures successful L.A., sealed the deal, helium said.

“Now I’m truthful respectable, I could puke,” helium said. “I retrieve erstwhile I was condemned by the Catholic Church — however blessed that made me. And erstwhile I based full advertisement campaigns connected unspeakable reviews.”

It was William S. Burroughs who, successful 1986, dubbed Waters the “Pope of Trash.” Almost 40 years later, a full caller procreation has caught up to Waters — a information that greatly pleases the self-proclaimed “filth elder.”

John Waters is performing a day amusement astatine the Wallis connected April 26.

(Greg Gorman)

Waters was precocious sent a clip of Musk’s transgender daughter, Vivian Wilson, 21, lip-syncing “Pink Flamingos” lines spoken by Divine, the legendary resistance queen and prima of galore Waters films.

“Filth are my politics, flith is my life,” Wilson mugs for the camera, flipping her hairsbreadth and putting her hands connected her hips.

“I was amazed and touched by that,” Waters said. “I thought, wow, from 50-some years ago, that truly has gone far.”

Waters’ vocation has been defined by his fearless — often outrageous — attack to spotlighting LGBTQ+ actors and themes. He brings the aforesaid sensibility to his one-man shows. The property merchandise for his day amusement calls the show “an endless container of trans-gressive, and hetero-non-aggressive twisted tales that volition lukewarm the acheronian small hearts of non-binary brats each implicit the world.”

The proclamation comes astatine a clip erstwhile the Trump medication has declared that it volition admit lone 2 sexes, antheral and female, and has taken implicit the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, promising an extremity to resistance shows “targeting our youth.”

Waters, however, isn’t disquieted astir the president’s onslaught connected drag.

“He’ll ne'er get escaped of drag,” Waters said. “That’s impossible. RuPaul made it acceptable to mediate America.”

Still, Waters isn’t amazed immoderate radical don’t similar resistance communicative time. He said the Academy Museum wanted to bash resistance communicative clip for his movie screenings, and helium responded, “Are you insane? My resistance queens are made to scare adults, not comfortableness children.”

Many of Waters’ films managed to scare adults implicit the years — but young people, bare for rebellion and anxious to align with an creator who gave dependable and legitimacy to their much prurient interests, person flocked to Waters since the opening of his career.

One rubric that has chopped done to the mainstream successful a large way, and has ne'er been censored, contempt having immoderate beauteous outrageous themes, is 1988’s “Hairspray,” which was adapted into a Broadway philharmonic successful 2002.

Waters calls “Hairspray” a “Trojan horse.”

“In the plot, Tracy Turnblad does not deliberation her parent is trans,” Waters said of the young pistillate protagonist played by Ricki Lake, whose mother, Edna Turnblad, is played by Divine. “It’s a concealed betwixt the assemblage and the actors, and they don’t cognize however to onslaught that.”

For Waters, wit is the eventual weapon, and helium wields it with irreverent goodwill, mocking himself archetypal earlier tearing into anyone else.

“Humor is ever the mode to triumph a war, to terrorize people, to marque them laugh, to alteration their mind, to scare them and to beryllium friendly,” Waters said, noting that helium often makes amusive of liberals the most, due to the fact that helium is 1 himself.

Waters said helium loves everything helium teases “and possibly that’s wherefore I truly ne'er americium mean, and radical clasp adjacent the astir brainsick s— I say.”

Also: He isn’t self-righteous, which helium views arsenic “the eventual misdeed of governmental correctness.”

There volition beryllium nary governmental correctness during Waters’ day show. The advised property for attending is 18-plus. For the past 50 years, the filmmaker has sat successful his bureau each time astatine 8 a.m. to constitute — a process helium utilized to refine his latest one-man publication arsenic well.

Inspiration has ne'er been hard to travel by.

“I find beingness interesting. I spy connected people. I eavesdrop. I work 20 newspapers a day. I get 100 magazines successful the message still,” helium said. “I’m funny successful quality behavior. I tin ne'er recognize erstwhile idiosyncratic says they’re bored. That is the astir unfathomable happening that you could accidental to me.”