Review by S.E. Barcus
Dynasty Handbag: Titanic Depression
By Jibz Cameron
March 27-29, 2025
On the Boards, Seattle, WA
(**SPOILERS! As usual, I just can’t shut up!**)
What a wonderful “weirdo”!
Dynasty Handbag (the Doppelgoofy of performance artist Jibz Cameron), is one exaggeratedly foppish gal. She is as schmutzy-glamorous (and lackadaisical with her gowns and lipstick) as Divine, yet suddenly as combative and comedically intense as Karen Finley. Talk about a wonderful blend!
Known in LA for her monthly experimental comedy revue, “Weirdo Night!”, she is now in Seattle with her show, Titanic Depression, a campy solo retelling of the Titanic story, in a modern setting, where the iceberg-that-cometh is climate change itself. And while the goal, she claims, in the program, is to take on that “well-worn narrative of class and gender inequality,” she can save that schtick for her Guggenheim grant proposals – cuz this show is one silly-ass, successfully-subversive sensation! (Say that 5 times fast.) Based primarily off of James Cameron’s version of the disaster (I mean, how can she not, with the same last name?!), she presents patriarchy and wealth represented by … a smarmy, Terry-Gilliam-ish-dick-in-a-fancy-shoe cartoon dandy, cut-out and moving in that choppy, doltish manner. So — oh no, don’t worry — patriarchy gonna go down tonight … but with panache!
Because it was written over the past six years, Ms. Handbag jokes with us in the beginning to bear with her, since, “Some of it is old now… it’s pretty dark. … So, just disregard that, because things are – I know, I know – things are a LOT better now….” She tells us this is the fourth run of the show, and opening night for Seattle – so, she’s gonna give birth to it for us. Then she mimes … you know … giving birth.
Ms. Handbag (if I can call her that?) even has the LOOK of an appropriately groovy, 90’s NYC hipster. She just carries a Laurie Anderson essence in her expressions all night, combined with an endearing, absent-minded, ADHD meandering kid. Her “texting” – (with a, you know, a banana) – was filled with mis-spellings and a carefree-carelessness that was her general spirit throughout the show. (I’d say “blithe,” except that Cameron is fun but so obviously NOT indifferent to her material.) Sometimes the animated octopus has 7 arms, sometimes 9 – who cares?! Matt Damon is confused with Tom Cruise; she doesn’t know how to say “Chalamet”, cuz – you know — who cares?! Shit from her suitcase gradually gets strewn about the stage floor, making it messier and messier and messier…. It is likely that our walls go down pretty quickly watching such an innocent-appearing goofball. Probably artistically strategic? Or, at least, just leveraging her natural powers? I imagine Handbag/Cameron knows of John Cleese’s quote, “they who laugh most, learn best,” given the Gilliam animations, and the Life of Brian spaceship reference/interlude, where Handbag is whisked away into a tech-bro’s rocket, crash lands back to Earth on the exact same spot, and survives, like the “lucky bastard,” Brian.
She improvises a bit as well, interacting with audience members. (She even seems to know our scene a little – she gave a shout out to Dina Martina….) At one point she eggs us on to fight with Oregon! “Wait, what? It’s not like that? You guys are friendly?? … BORING!” I think we would have had more playful fun with Oregon and her prodding, if it weren’t for the current political climate. When the country is being represented by a malignant narcissist who is literally attacking our wonderful, kind neighbor up north in Canada, in our name (and your southern neighbor, Mexico, for you, Cameron), we’re too locked-in to a feeling of solidarity right now to be able to joke about … about … bragging that Mt Rainier kicks Mt Hood’s ASS! 😊 (Sorry to be boring for you, Ms. Handbag! Oh – and re: improv — when she calls out for a word to riff on – PLEASE do better than we. We gave her, “potato”?! Come on! Although, I mean, she did do a nice job improvising a The Martian reference….)
On top of writing and performing, Handbag can SING! The spoof of “(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life” was pure 80’s cheese pop, as if sung by some poppy Kathleen Hanna/Le Tigre maniac: “I wanna be a climate-activist-slash-dancer: overworked … and under-paid … and telling everybody ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME!!!” Between this and the equally aMAZing spoof of “When a Man Loves a Woman” (“When a Man Has an Idea” — pro-tip, it’s never a good thing…), these two songs by themselves are worth the price of the pink album she sells after the show.
So, yeah — you can go and see Handbag just for her faux-laid-back fun, and have a great time. But if you prefer — there is definitely a method to the madness, of the like I’ve not heard in a long, long time (I feel like Obi-wan!). There is both an appreciation and reincarnation of those grittier 90’s performance artists, like when she suggests someone does surgery on her right on stage, “like a 90’s performance.” She has female body humor moments – maybe not covering her body with chocolate, candies, and alfalfa sprouts – but challenging enough in her own ludicrous way, like when she’s “naked.” And, also in homage to Karen Finley, she playfully bites the hand that feeds her. Just as Finley used to point out on stage (at the time at war with Jesse Helms) — during the most “obscene” parts of her performances — that she “was brought to you by grants from the NEA,” Ms. Handbag takes a dig at Benjamin Guggenheim (one of the several older, and newer, robber-baron-bros she decimates in one of her animations). We recall that Guggenheim famously died on the Titanic. And then — while telling us she had received a Guggenheim grant — she cannot stop herself from detailing the horrific colonizing, mining, smelting, and various exploitations committed by Guggenheim – although it starts to sicken her so much that she chooses to dance on her three noise-effect pedals, with diarrhea-fart-sounds to drown out the atrocities, while also making an awesome, apropos, “smelt it” joke.
By the end — no need to fear, Titanic, the ice has actually melted! Yay! Yet, then the tone-switcheroo — somehow the fear does not dissipate as we see some pretty disturbing videos of actual Antarctic and Greenland ice shelfs melting away into torrential Class 5 rapids…. Ahhh…. (Coincidentally coinciding with another imperialist nightmare, as our Yale-billy VP trolls Greenland today….) Still – we’re … saved? No. The iceberg is replaced by the catastrophe of hitting something akin to the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” and the seemingly hoarder-mess all over the stage from her suitcase is now, befittingly, the perfect “set design.”
There’s too many jokes and spoofs to cover. So much fun. If you go, and read this later, I’ll just give teasers, like …. “Lesbians on trains.” And — “bowels-of-the-ship rave party.” And, of course, the car love-scene from Titanic … with an octopus. And when she gets into her ruffled, sexy-see-through negligee? I can just hear Max in a kitschy background, voice-overing about Handbag — “And this is Mrs. H. … She’s gooooorgeous!” (Sorry, if I’m gonna go all-in with 80’s primetime soap opera references, that should’ve probably been a joke alluding to Dynasty, not Hart-to-Hart….)
Criticisms? For all the Titanic kitsch – we couldn’t believe she didn’t indulge us with two of the hits?! Where was the ‘king of the world!’ scene?! It was implied in the promo photo! …. Or the floating door scene at the end?! Waaah!! (We were expecting the octopus to save her in the end…. Alas. .… Like, off the door, not with that sweet surrealist dance….)
Also, she definitely could add a bit more at the end. It got a bit awkward watching her slowly dance with the octopus puppet for … like … 5 minutes? I enjoyed the intermittent non-verbal moments of music, and dance, and visual art, at times serious. The meditation on death suddenly was a serious jolt, poking insightful fun as to why folks come to disaster flicks to begin with. But the grand finale — dancing with a Sesame Street puppet – it was fine, but not worthy of a finale for this otherwise incredible show. Which is SUCH a bummer! (The end reminded me of another great solo performer, Eddie Izzard, when they said, “I like to end my shows with a kind of an, “oh.” … And I think I’ve done that quite well.”)
Maybe, somehow or another, end with something like, “When a Man has an Idea,” which was just such a powerfully poignant and hysterical ‘fuck-egomaniacs’ of a song, that, if you ENDED with something as punchy and impressive as that? You’d be guaranteed that standing-O, yo!
But overall, given that ‘these are the times that try mens’ souls,’ it is so nice to experience communal art/theater/whatever that is not tone deaf, and is presented with an acute awareness of the current horror of our times. When we got to see ye ol’ cathartic cumming-all-over-the-face-of-Jeff-Bezos in the robber-baron-bros-bit?! Crass collage-artists would be proud!
I recall seeing Holly Hughes in the 90’s, at On the Boards, back when it was in the CD. Way to go, OtB, such a long history of always being a safe space for adventerous art. I so loved Finley, and Anderson, and Acker, and Magnuson, and all of them, “back in the day.” It is nice to see that spirit still alive, if in a slightly blended form. Please check out Dynasty Handbag. It’s just a zany, sweet, and strange experience with an astute modern awareness that helps weather the storm. She’s another smart, bad-ass broad, taking it to the man. It is truly comforting and reassuring, knowing this weirdo is running around out there. Out from under.
Copyright 3-27-2025
S.E. Barcus 
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