The man and the mask

If Oscar Wilde were around today, the chances are he'd be a drag queen. The essence of drag is its stylisation. The drag queen's flamboyant gesture is capable of double interpretation: a humorous meaning for the knowing, another for those on the outside. Drag doesn't automatically equate with homosexuality, but homosexuals form its most articulate audience. Historically, gay liberation owes much to New York's Stonewall Bar drag queens, who, in 1969, after years of harassment by NYPD, famously barricaded themselves into the bar following yet another police raid and fought back. A nascent liberation movement was catapulted forward with teeth and clout.

Clearly, as a contemporary minority in an age of mass culture, there is a propagandist element to the drag queen's repertoire. It's a sportive snub at moralistic indignation. Yet popular perceptions best understand drag in the form of its British tradition. You know the type: man in dress, unattractive caricature of middle-aged woman, inherently defensive, bitter, misogynist.

Thankfully, a new species of the genus is alive and well in Dublin. Principal among these new, informed, engaged acts are: Panti, Shirley Temple-Bar and Vada Bon Reve. Above all, theirs is a playful art. Yet it's also serious. Unusually, their drag is not disengaged or depoliticised. These performers have honed their craft to perfection. Impeccable lip sync, great costumes, and dance routines to die for. Rory O'Neill, 30, aka Panti, comes from Mayo and studied design at Dun Laoghaire College of Art and Design. "I didn't want to do plain old graphic design for my final year project. I wanted to work with different design elements. I hit on doing a drag show. I could design the costumes, the sets, posters, a lot of things I was interested in," he says. His stage persona, Panti, evolved years later while he lived in Japan.

He drew inspiration for the character from childhood memories of a glamorous, young, American aunt. "She was a bit crazy, but always seemed really fun. She always brought great presents, American things, good to get in the West of Ireland in the 1970s," Rory says. "Panti is built around her but she has developed a lot since then." Rory agrees Panti has a gentle, almost motherly, quality; but doesn't know why that's in her, "maybe it's the aunt thing". Interestingly when Panti performed in straight clubs, men and women alike confided in her about their own gay experiences. "I guess they thought a man in woman's clothes in public wouldn't condemn them," Rory says. "In a sense they probably didn't believe I was a real person. And felt secure. Safe."

Rory characterises Panti's persona as two-dimensional. One is entertainment, fun; the other plays with darker things, for example, fetish performances. "I see that as more arty than pure entertainment". Often, in Panti's darker performances, the music is deliberately lighthearted - a Carpenters number, say, "to keep a humorous element to it. "Sometimes Panti does some extreme things; adding a new layer of shock. This makes people really sit back and take notice." He likens this to a sugar-coated pill. "I love the look on people's faces; going through the emotions from quiet disbelief, to shock, nudging a friend, then laughter, half embarrassment, half amazement, watching the show. I love that part."

What does Rory get from drag? "Partly it's the performance buzz. There's a certain creative quality doing something live. I like the immediacy of things you can never quite explain later."

Dubliner Declan Buckley, aged 30, aka Shirley Temple-Bar, studied marketing at DCU. He came to drag later than his colleagues. "The first time I properly did drag was for the Alternative Miss Ireland contest in 1997." He won the title. "Shirley Temple-Bar is a simplistic, girl-next-door type, not a glamour puss. Hers is a character-driven look. She's 14 years old, a schoolgirl from the Coombe," Declan says. "She's drawn from old memories anyone brought up in Dublin would have. The things old people talk about. Like going to Boyers' restaurant for tea and cakes with your granny.

"My shows operate on two levels - actual comedy, gags and acts. And it's also a mask; allowing me the freedom to say things," Declan says. "Shirley's now saying more sophisticated things." Some of these, described as "poetic licence", include running commentaries on current affairs, politics and other contemporary events. "If she doesn't like something - for example, her least favourite airline, Ryanair - we hear about it. Shirley is essentially kitsch, deliberately unglamourous and self-deprecating. She's more about what comes out of her mouth and less about how she looks.

"The feedback from the audience is very important," Declan says. "My buzz is getting people to laugh, to enjoy themselves." Declan characterises Shirley as "low art, not a thought-through concept. I'm in a dress making jokes. It's not major art." No two of Shirley's performances of the same act are ever the same - "there's always some variation, this gives it a freshness," Declan adds. "Shirley is above all down to earth, into nostalgia, like the sweets you hated or the trips to Butlins. Things people are capable of identifying with."

Panti, Shirley and Vada have different styles. "We contrast very well," Declan explains. "Panti is gentle; Shirley is innocent cattiness; Vada's more arty." Fellow Dubliner, Enda McGrattan, 26, aka Vada Bon Reve, studied History of Art at TCD. His interest in drag goes back to his childhood doll collection and dressing up in his mother's clothes. "Everything about women that celebrated their femininity was, for me, more glamorous than what boys were supposed to be interested in or play with." Enda's stage persona, Vada Bon Reve, was created for a drag performance in Dublin. He characterises Vada as "physically more gothic than she wants to be, spiritually or emotionally".

"Drag is definitely my kind of art form," Enda says. "I think since the Pop Art movement and Candy Darling, drag is now accepted as an art form. You may do it with a mascara wand and a good wig instead of some paints and brushes. But, if you're getting your feelings across, exercising your imagination, you're creating art. No matter how diverse the drag, comedy, cabaret or performance art, its all art and that goes for Panti, Shirley and Vada."

"We're not total scene queens," says Enda. "Our interests go beyond Steps, Madonna and Drag. We're intelligent, articulate and open-minded." Their broad appeal, beyond the gay audience, has to do with their "sense of theatre. The more we perform together the more dynamic the acts", Enda explains.

"A lot of the time I'm trying to exorcise demons and vent emotions. Some of my performances, for example, Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me are powerful, sad," Enda says. "The serious side of drag is having the freedom to let yourself go, being a man-pussy on stage and fulfil your fantasy. That's a precious thing to communicate to people. It can be inspiring. I think there's a domino effect: people watch your fantasy and then they think of their own. It's healthy for people to think what they might do as Panti, Shirley or Vada."

Panti, Shirley Temple-Bar and Vada Bon Reve can be seen at GRISTLE, the fortnightly girl's school for boys at Dublin's Pod, Bingo at the George each Sunday, and Powder Bubble, occasionally at Dublin's Red Box.