Murder At Buck’s wants to be many things. It’s a classic “whodunit” murder mystery game. It’s interactive theatre. It’s a drag show.
It’s also a welcome reminder of the kind of fun, loosey-goosey shows that used to happen on the regular back in the early ’90s, such as those staged by The Sick and Twisted Players, the troupe that gave the late drag queen Heklina her start.
In this day and age, when even run-of-the-mill drag shows feel like you’re watching competitive auditions for RuPaul’s Drag Race rather than anything edgy — or dare I say exciting — seeing something this raw and unpolished is frankly a breath of fresh air. While the whole show has a bit of a rag-tag vibe, its charming “hey let’s put on a show!” spirit more than makes up for its more amateur qualities.
As the Castro district emerged as a hub for the LGBTQ+ community in the 1960s and 70s, Beck’s Motor Lodge became a place where guests could be themselves without fear of persecution. Its proximity to iconic LGBTQ+ landmarks such as the Castro Theatre and Harvey Milk’s former camera shop further solidified its place in queer history. At the satirical Buck’s, however:
The basic plot is typical of murder mystery tropes. In 1969, a murder occurs at Buck’s Motor Lodge, and each member of the 8-person cast is introduced as a suspect, with each doing a lip-sync performance to a song that ostensibly advances the plot a bit, or gives clues to the character’s motivations.
The song choices are all period appropriate from the ’60s, including well-known crowd-pleasers like Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’,” Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” The Doors’ “People Are Strange,” and Donovan’s “The Season of the Witch.”
The script is equal parts campy and clunky, but at two hours long, the show quite often drags — no pun intended. There’s a lot of exposition in-between the drag numbers that could be trimmed for a tighter show, but there’s also seemingly a bit of ad-libbing as well. And there’s an intermission where audience members vote on who they think the murderer is —
“Your choices change the shape of the show, so no two evenings will be the same,” reads the event. This sort of immersive theater has been popping up all over San Francisco nowadays, from SQREAM at SF Oasis to the upcoming Sunnydale Prom a la Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Into the Wonkyverse at The Midway.
The fourth wall is being constantly broken and the audience is invited to cross-examine the suspects with questions, so the show can change based on who the crowd thinks is the killer.
Polly Amber Ross — one of the show’s creators — tears up the stage as the crowd-pleasing favorite, Barbara Goat Grass. At the end of the show, she thanked everyone for supporting their little experiment in community-based queer and trans theatre and admitted that they put it all together in only four rehearsals. And while certainly it showed, it’s also a perfect example of San Francisco starting to get weird again.
// Murder at Buck’s plays at 9:30 PM this Friday and Saturday, April 12 & 13, at Eclectic Box, 446 Valencia St., San Francisco. Tickets
Adriana Roberts is a DJ and performer with her Bootie Mashup parties, as well as a writer and trans influencer.
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