Season 2 Episode 14
Ben Binversie (00:06):
Whatever your idea of a typical drag queen is, I’m willing to bet it’s a far cry from Martha Graham Cracker, the world’s tallest, hairiest drag queen, coming up. This is All Things Grinnell, I’m your host Ben Binversie. On today’s show we talk with Dito Van Reigersberg, the man behind the drag queen known as Martha Graham Cracker. Martha performed here at Grinnell in the fall, and Dito sat down with me for a chat before the show. Even back then, Martha provided some much needed laughs and great music. And right now, those feel even more important.
Ben Binversie (00:54):
We talk about the world of drag, where Martha fits into that world and the wonderful ways in which weird spaces give us permission to explore who we are. The information and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not represent the views of Grinnell College. After graduating from college, Dito Van Reigersberg moved to New York where he studied theater and the Martha Graham dance technique. He then moved back to Philly where he helped found the Pig Iron Theater Company, and that’s where the story of Martha Graham Cracker started to take shape.
Ben Binversie (01:43):
Dito transformed from a really tall hairy man into an even taller, just as hairy drag queen. Dito’s chest hair is matched only by the amount of flirting he does during the show. Unlike many a drag queen, Martha sings rather than lip-syncs, and boy does she sing. From Martha Originals to covers of Prince and the Beatles, she belts out the songs, and her performances are arousing combination of great music, improv and comedy.
Ben Binversie (02:10):
Just a heads up, if you’re listening to this with the little kiddos around, Dito and Martha for that matter, have a bit of a naughty side, a little more PG-13 than PG. Nothing to be scared of, but you might want to put the headphones on if you have innocent ears around. Dito actually graduated from a liberal arts college himself, Swarthmore, which is how he ended up visiting Grinnell after connecting with professor of French, David Harrison.
David Harrison (02:34):
I first saw Martha Graham Cracker perform at a reunion at Swarthmore College. Dito and I were both students at Swarthmore College but we did not overlap, and so we actually did not know each other in college. But we shared some of the same academic experiences, and I was so engaged by the performance. And in particular I found the song arrangements so clever and creative that I immediately knew that I would have to invite Martha to perform at Grinnell College.
David Harrison (03:12):
I’ve also seen Martha perform in her regular Philadelphia performance space. And there again, I was just wowed by the creativity, the thoughtfulness, the intelligence that goes into both the character and the performance of Martha Graham Cracker. I think it’s a really smart commentary on society, on gender, but also a really smart adaptation of various forms of musical production to bring people together and to create just an entertaining event.
Ben Binversie (04:27):
Dito performed at Grinnell back in November, but I wanted to take it back to before that, and even before Martha, when Dito first found the world of theater.
Dito van Reigersberg (04:35):
My parents would take me to the theater a lot when I was a kid. And then I remember we did like an abridged version of Midsummer Night’s Dream when I was in sixth grade. And I was in it and I was like, “This is amazing.” I don’t know, I think I really believed in the magic of it and I really was like ... We actually had like theater lights and someone made mushrooms for the forest, and I don’t know, it was really ... I feel like I have this memory in sixth grade of sitting around a table and reading the play and making other people laugh, and I was like, “That’s a drug I could get used to.”
Dito van Reigersberg (05:21):
Let’s forget about junior high, because junior high is horrible for most people, and I’m no exception. So junior high was like awful, I was like the most awkward person, and people were teasing me, and I would cry and blah, blah blah. But then you get to high school and you’re like, “Okay. I’ve gone through my awkward phase, now what?” And freshman year I took a drama class and I was like, “These are my people.” Just in terms of like, we were the weirdos as often it is in high schools, you’re like, “Oh, the drama people are the weirdos of the high school.”
Ben Binversie (06:01):
Yeah, that is a common perception.
Dito van Reigersberg (06:03):
Yeah. And so I think I was just excited to be in a room with people who are like, “Oh, playing characters is fun. Doing silly voices is fun. I like singing a song or speaking with this ridiculous accent.” And just like, I think it felt like the rest of the high school was very ...
Ben Binversie (06:24):
Straight edge.
Dito van Reigersberg (06:25):
Straight edge and kind of trying to prove something about coolness, and about you should respect me and you should ... I just was like, I am not interested in any of that or any of those ideas about conformity, and I’m really more interested in how funny people are, like joking around with people and also like exchanging real ideas with people in a nerdy way. So I think I’m like a comedy nerd kind of person, a nerdy comic. Yeah, I think the theater really helped me find people who are both like nonconformists and they’re thinking and percolating and experimenting.
Ben Binversie (07:14):
Yeah. And it’s cool to find your people as early as high school.
Dito van Reigersberg (07:20):
Yeah.
Ben Binversie (07:21):
That’s valuable.
Dito van Reigersberg (07:22):
Totally.
Ben Binversie (07:22):
So from high school in Virginia, you went to Swarthmore College in Philadelphia.
Dito van Reigersberg (07:27):
I did. I don’t know if this sounds familiar to you at all, but it’s a small liberal arts college-
Ben Binversie (07:31):
I’ve heard of them.
Dito van Reigersberg (07:32):
... in a town that’s also kind of small and quaint and has beautiful architecture. When I got here last night, driven by Billy, thank you Billy. Billy was giving us all a nice tour and I was like, “This campus reminds me so much of Swarthmore.” It’s a similar size. I think we’re 1500 and you guys are like 1600.
Ben Binversie (07:54):
1600.
Dito van Reigersberg (07:55):
Yeah. But it seems like Grinnell is even more internationally focused and there’s a lot ... I read somewhere that’s like, students from all 50 States and from 50 countries.
Ben Binversie (08:05):
Yeah, I’m not sure what it is right now, it changes every year, but yeah, there’s a large international student body for sure.
Dito van Reigersberg (08:11):
Yeah. So I arrive at Swarthmore, I thought I was going to be an English major. There was a moment where I had a ... Not a fight, but I had a difference of opinion with some of the theater department and I was like, “Maybe I will be a English major. I hate you guys.” No, I just was going through something, and then I figured out a way to like get over that and I became a theater major in earnest. And then I founded my theater company soon after which is called Pig Iron Theater Company based in Philly. But all the original founding members of Pig Iron were from Swarthmore.
Ben Binversie (08:51):
Swatties.
Dito van Reigersberg (08:51):
Swatties, exactly.
Ben Binversie (08:52):
Nice.
Dito van Reigersberg (08:53):
Do you guys have Grinnellians?
Ben Binversie (08:56):
Grinnellians, yeah. You nailed it.
Dito van Reigersberg (08:56):
Grinnellians. Is there a shorter way of saying it or you just have to say the whole thing?
Ben Binversie (08:59):
You kind of got to say it all.
Dito van Reigersberg (09:01):
[inaudible 00:09:01] Grinnellians.
Ben Binversie (09:05):
Grinnellian.
Dito van Reigersberg (09:05):
Oh, hello Grinnellian.
Ben Binversie (09:08):
I know Swarthmore has a healthy amount of weirdness, is that kind of where you started to embrace the weird?
Dito van Reigersberg (09:15):
I was just talking earlier today about how I had only really been exposed to more commercial or like regional theater as a kid, so that’s what I knew. And then at Swarthmore I was exposed to something that kind of blew my mind, which was like physical theater, devise theater, ensemble-based theater, and I just started to realize like, Oh, the theater is so much wider a pallet than I ever thought. Yeah. I would say that Swarthmore is where I really got exposed to more radical ideas about what performance could do.
Ben Binversie (10:01):
So you eventually then after graduating founded Pig Iron, but you moved to New York before heading to Philadelphia again, or returning to Philadelphia, did the whole kind of move to New York, be a young creative person thing, which sounds exciting and terrifying and alluring, but also tiring. So how did you end up back in Philadelphia and starting that theater company?
Dito van Reigersberg (10:26):
After Swarthmore, I didn’t really know what my next step would be, but I was like, “Oh, I feel like New York, it’s two hours away at the most.” And the idea is like, I need to know what New York is like, even if I never live there again, but I just sort of want to have that experience. And so I went to acting school, the place called the Neighborhood Playhouse where I studied kind of more realistic acting techniques. And that’s also where I first saw drag, and that’s where I also studied at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance.
Dito van Reigersberg (11:07):
So all of these things were kind of swirling. That was like the mid 90s. Yeah, I would say firstly, with my roommate, we went out and we saw my first drag show, which was a drag queen named Joey Arias, who’s famous for channeling Billie Holiday. Like he’s a very goofy, flirty, raunchy person who definitely will take the wireless mic and stick it down some man’s pants and then speak into the mic while the mic is in that man’s pants.
Dito van Reigersberg (11:44):
But then sometimes will totally steal the room in a very like, almost like holy way with this sudden channeling of Billy Holiday and we’re like, “What? She’s coming through this other body, but it’s her.” He’s a really interesting person, that he was the first kind of model I guess for what a drag queen could be. And then I would joke around about what I would name myself if I were a drag queen. And Martha Graham was someone who I never met but I studied her technique in ...
Dito van Reigersberg (12:23):
I was studying there for almost three years, and you just hear all these stories about what a strange diva she was, Martha Graham. She was kind of a drinker, but she was also inventing a whole new technique that the world had never seen before. And even today when you see a Graham dance, it’s weird, it’s really bizarre.
Ben Binversie (12:48):
I was watching some of it last night.
Dito van Reigersberg (12:50):
Yeah, it’s wild, and so I think back then it would’ve been even more wild. So there’s something about Martha Graham herself who I think is both like a tragic figure who’s like, “I drink because I’m lonely and I’m a genius, and it’s not easy carrying the burden of all this genius,” which is also like a ridiculous thing to think, but I think maybe she did think that. I feel sort of attracted to all of those pretentious ideas about yourself and also like I want to dare to be that bold and full of-
Ben Binversie (13:30):
Yourself.
Dito van Reigersberg (13:31):
... myself. Yeah, part of getting up on stage for me, not as Dito but as Martha is ... Because I think of myself, Dito, is much more kind of demure and humble, and I think that when I turn into Martha there’s a moment where I’m like, “Oh, I’m in control of this room. What I say goes.” I’m in charge and there’s a real ... It’s weird how becoming this character gives me a kind of power that I don’t carry around with me in the day time.
Dito van Reigersberg (14:09):
And I don’t know what that is, but it’s always happened, that when I turn into her that there’s like some ... People might say, “It’s just like you’re accessing a different part of your psyche,” and some people might be like, “It is a possession.” My dad was very nervous to see Martha Graham Cracker for a long time, and then when he came to see her for the first time, he was like, “It’s your grandmother.” And I was like, “What?” He was like, “It’s just her grandmother coming through,” which ... And I don’t know how-
Ben Binversie (14:43):
That had to be weird for you to think of also.
Dito van Reigersberg (14:45):
... Yeah, I had never thought of the character that way, and I also, I never ... And I still don’t know if he meant something more spiritual or more like, “You’re just imitating your grandma.” Because he said, “It’s your grandmother coming through.” So I don’t know if that meant like, “Of course you’re relayed to your grandmother and you are taking on some of her characteristics when you play that part,” or if it’s just like, “Your grandmother who no longer is on this mortal plane is possessing you.”
Ben Binversie (15:16):
Alive, yeah.
Dito van Reigersberg (15:17):
My grandmother was very much a diva. She was an actress, she was a pianist. She was a concert pianist that was very successful when she was in her teens. And she just had this thing, like a Gloria Swanson thing of like long red fingernails and she was a smoker, and she had this like red lipstick and ways of like ordering people around in this very ... She would say like, “Don’t you think it’s martini time?” Which is a command, but it doesn’t sound like a command. It’s like, “Oh, that’s so nice,” but it actually means like, “Go get me a martini right now.” You’re like, “Oh.” So yeah, there’s some sort of weird mystery about what part of my brain comes out when I’m her.
Ben Binversie (16:05):
Yeah. How did you kind of fuse your experiences from traditional theater, more radical theater, physical theater, and then maybe your grandmother, just like other parts of you that you didn’t normally express during your daily life or even in your other theatrical stuff that you were doing, how did that come about into Martha Graham Cracker cabaret, and like how did that actually come into a formal existence in the form of shows that people get to see?
Dito van Reigersberg (16:36):
At first it was truly a side project, it was like Pig Iron Theater Company, I was artistic director and a company member, that was really my full-time gig. And so like I guess once a month I would perform as Martha and I was like, “Oh, this is just fun.” And it was fun, still is, but it’s I never really thought of it taking off as much as it has. And yeah, I guess maybe partly Pig Iron is founded by a lot of ... I would say it’s mainly a straight company, and so maybe it was my way of expressing the queer parts of me and having that come to the fore as a performer.
Dito van Reigersberg (17:22):
I’ve always enjoyed singing. My mom was always like, “You sang in the shower since you were like eight.” That singing was always going to be part of something I wanted to do. So I started doing it, and it was just me and Victor at first. It was the pianist and myself. But then this place called L’Etage, which is my kind of home base in Philadelphia, offered us a gig per month, and that kind of ... It was a steady gig, which was both good money wise and also in terms of practicing the repetition and like building the muscles of playing this character and doing the show. And that was 13 years ago, maybe 14.
Ben Binversie (18:13):
Who’s counting?
Dito van Reigersberg (18:14):
Who’s counting? But anyway. So that was a real turning point where I had to take it seriously because it was going to happen every month indefinitely. I always thought of it as like a little lark thing that I would do outside of my main job, and then it started to take over. Now, it took me actually to Las Vegas, I did a show there. And now we tour a bunch as Martha Graham Cracker Cabernet to New York, to Joe’s Pub, to Grinnell. We’ve been to Minneapolis several times. We’ve been to California, Texas. Anyway, it’s exciting to have made something that people like, I guess enough, that there’s demand for it beyond Philadelphia.
Ben Binversie (19:04):
Yeah. I was thinking about like whether Martha was, like this character was inside of you all along or like whether how much it was that versus you kind of creating the character, but then I was thinking also like maybe Martha represents kind of like what’s inside of a lot of us and like what we aren’t, what we don’t feel like we can express normally, whether it’s because or our bodies or what society tells us about our bodies or what we tell us about our bodies, and that Martha is kind of what people aren’t telling you not to do kind of a thing.
Dito van Reigersberg (19:36):
Yeah. I sometimes teach Cabaret, and when I do, I often use the word permission, and that Cabaret is like ... There’s a reason why Cabaret happens not in the morning. Like it happens at night when mischief feels more possible and there’s always alcohol and a bar and a rowdiness, and I think there’s a real permission to try on things that don’t feel like they would be as permissible in the light of day, busting out of our every day-
Ben Binversie (20:14):
Constraints.
Dito van Reigersberg (20:14):
... constraints and our puritanical culture. Yeah. I guess it’s so funny I never chased all the way back to sixth grade reading Midsummer Night’s Dream around the table. But making people laugh still feels really important and really feels like something people will always need. And it’s felt especially true ever since computers and iPhones are so much a part of our lives that people are hungry for a live body to body experience where you can’t get it through any other medium but being there.
Dito van Reigersberg (20:55):
And then it’s a live experience where they’re very aware that I’m kind of surfing what the reality is in the moment that I’m improvising, and that there’s always this reiteration that we’re all here together, and we’re enjoying this together, we’re experiencing this together, we’re laughing together. I don’t know. I’m not particularly a religious or a spiritual person, but sometimes I’m like, “Oh, I think that does feed something in me of ... ” or maybe just the word is community.
Ben Binversie (21:32):
Just a connection that kind of transcends the normal like, I’m talking to you experience.
Dito van Reigersberg (21:37):
Yeah, or I’m just like texting and emailing you.
Ben Binversie (21:39):
Especially that. Yeah. I mean that’s why we like going to concerts.
Dito van Reigersberg (21:43):
Absolutely.
Ben Binversie (21:45):
So for those listeners that won’t be privy to the performance here at the college tonight, can you give them an idea of what they’re missing out on tonight in like a typical show, if there is one? Because I know there’s also a lot of improv in there as well, but kind of basic outline sketch.
Dito van Reigersberg (22:02):
I can kind of tell you behind the scenes what I do.
Ben Binversie (22:05):
Ooh.
Dito van Reigersberg (22:07):
I get dressed in some sort of crazy, glamorous costume, but I almost always am showing my hairy chest, sometimes my hairy shoulders, but I have a full face of makeup on, so there’s that kind of like, “Oh, that person is confusing.” And hopefully, by the end of the night you’re delighted by the confusion. And there’s a lot of arrangements of songs that may be familiar, but then we’ve added a little twist to them. And what I was going to say about behind the scenes, so we’ll determine the set list.
Dito van Reigersberg (22:44):
So of our repertory of songs, we’ll choose maybe nine, and then I’ll sort of be thinking about like, “Oh that’s in an order for a reason,” even if it’s kind of arbitrary. And then I’ll have a little moment to reflect, think about things that I want to talk about. But then sort of like a free fall jumping out of the airplane, like when the show starts, sing a song, then I just start talking and see how that leads to the next song. And I usually try to plan some landmarks for myself in terms of what I’m going to say, but also I think if I plan it too much you can smell that in the audience.
Dito van Reigersberg (23:27):
So I really want people to be like, “Oh, this is not canned, pre-written material, this is happening. And that drag queen is looking me in the eyes or like is discovering this thing about this person in the audience.” So there’s a lot of audience interaction. And then I really love telling like shaggy dog stories. Do you know what I mean by shaggy dog stories?
Ben Binversie (23:48):
Yeah.
Dito van Reigersberg (23:49):
Like a story that is just ridiculous and goes on and on usually about romantic encounters gone terribly wrong. And then there’s this amazing band. Often people say, “The band is tight,” because my band is really good and they are familiar songs, but maybe with a different feel. I think the music sounds really good. So that’s part of what you take home too. But one of my favorite compliments that I’ve ever gotten is that people say that, Martha Graham Cracker shows make their faces hurt. I’m like, “What does that mean exactly?” And they’re like, “Oh, because I was laughing or smiling so much that I didn’t even realize, and then I was sore from smiling.”
Dito van Reigersberg (24:36):
I’m like, if that can be my journey through life, my calling, I’m happy. Because there’s so many things to worry about, there’s so many reasons to be like, “Is the earth going to continue as a planet?” And there’s reasons to panic and there reasons to be afraid and angry, and it’s not like I’m avoiding those, but I do think that people sometimes need to reprieve from those or some gas in the tank to keep up the energy to resist.
Ben Binversie (25:13):
Yeah. Are there any particular songs that you and the band like? I know you kind of don’t do the typical drag songs, but I was listening to some and there were definitely some recognizable songs but in a different way.
Dito van Reigersberg (25:28):
Yeah, done in a different feel. Yeah, we definitely have a tango version of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, that’s fun to do. Yeah. And sometimes we’ll do like a van Halen song. A drag queen doing it a Van Halen song is so strange. But if you look at David Lee Roth, that’s kind of a form of drag, like there’s a lot of leopard prints and hair, and I think makeup. Part of the reason why David brought us here, David Harrison, he saw me do a show at Swarthmore and we did a version, we did a four song medley called The Beatles Medley.
Ben Binversie (26:07):
Yeah, I saw that.
Dito van Reigersberg (26:08):
Yeah, and The Beatles Medley has ... All those songs are in different fields than they normally are, and they have different meanings than they normally do.
Ben Binversie (26:16):
It was good.
Dito van Reigersberg (26:17):
Like they have a very angry version of Let It Be. Let It Be where it’s almost like punk rock or Kurt Vile anger coming at you, but through this Beatle song that I don’t think was meant to be sung that way. [“Let It Be” medley plays]. Yeah, I’m very proud of that medley.
Ben Binversie (26:55):
As you indicated, your performances are definitely more than just singing though, there’s a good deal of improv and audience interaction. How do you kind of connect with the audience to create that kind of more shared experience together? And I imagine most of the places that you play outside of Las Vegas are a little more small and intimate kind of venues where you can have that interaction.
Dito van Reigersberg (27:20):
Absolutely. Yeah. How do I do that?
Ben Binversie (27:24):
Yeah.
Dito van Reigersberg (27:30):
By being vulnerable myself, the character, she’s vulnerable herself. I think that kind of disarms people. Sometimes people imagine that they’re going to a drag show where they might get called on, they’re very afraid, they’re like, “Oh no, there’s going to be a mean drag queen who’s ready to be bitchy, like find ways to read me and be like ...” There is a kind of drag queen that’s like, “I’m ready to cut you, and I’m ready to insult you as much as I can.” And that’s really, that’s not Martha.
Dito van Reigersberg (28:03):
Martha is very right, I think she’s very smart, and she can put people in their place, but I don’t think she ... Her mission is probably to fall in love or at least to flirt seriously with everyone in the audience, as opposed to showing everyone that she can cut a bitch. Yeah. I feel like actually one of the rules of a Martha show is that I go out there and I flirt with as many people as I can.
Ben Binversie (28:30):
Yeah, it’s a simple-
Dito van Reigersberg (28:32):
It’s a simple recipe.
Ben Binversie (28:33):
... formula. Yeah.
Dito van Reigersberg (28:33):
Yeah, sing songs and flirt, and maybe throw ... But also every one in a while, because I like to be a little weird, I’m also like, “Let me throw out a polysyllabic word so that you know I’m not your everyday drag queen, I have a [crosstalk 00:28:49]-”
Ben Binversie (28:49):
I have a Swarthmore education.
Dito van Reigersberg (28:52):
Exactly, I got to make it ...
Ben Binversie (28:54):
You got to use it somehow.
Dito van Reigersberg (28:55):
Somehow. So I’m like, “Here’s a polysyllabic word.”
Ben Binversie (28:58):
Those Swarthmore degrees are nearly as valuable as a Grinnell degree, so-
Dito van Reigersberg (29:02):
I know.
Ben Binversie (29:02):
.. you have to be creative.
Dito van Reigersberg (29:05):
Could I get like an honorary degree while here?
Ben Binversie (29:07):
They do give those out. I don’t know if I am qualified as the host of this podcast to give you one, but I can do my best.
Dito van Reigersberg (29:12):
See what you can do.
Ben Binversie (29:14):
So with everything that kind of Martha represents and does, it seems like a big goal is to make the audience just a touch uncomfortable, kind of. Not in a creepy way, but-
Dito van Reigersberg (29:26):
Not in a creepy way.
Ben Binversie (29:26):
... to make them think and make them question their assumptions. And I saw someone describe it as pleasurable audience disorientation.
Dito van Reigersberg (29:35):
I like that.
Ben Binversie (29:36):
How do you walk-
Dito van Reigersberg (29:38):
Who said that?
Ben Binversie (29:39):
... I don’t know, some Philadelphia magazine of some variety.
Dito van Reigersberg (29:41):
Pleasurable-
Ben Binversie (29:42):
Audience disorientation.
Dito van Reigersberg (29:42):
... audience disorientation.
Ben Binversie (29:44):
Yeah. You should snag that tagline.
Dito van Reigersberg (29:47):
I’m going to put on a tee shirt. That’s good.
Ben Binversie (29:50):
You can make that tee shirt and then we’ll make the well endowed Grinnell one as well.
Dito van Reigersberg (29:54):
And the strippers pad.
Ben Binversie (29:56):
Pad.
Dito van Reigersberg (29:58):
I use the pad system to make the audience come back to the drag show day after day, year after year.
Ben Binversie (30:05):
How do you walk the line and kind of push that envelope without going too far, or do you ever worry about going too far?
Dito van Reigersberg (30:14):
Yes and no. I mean I think I’ve performed long enough and I’ve interacted with enough audiences. You can feel when someone’s like, “Don’t touch me. Seriously, don’t touch me.” I can usually feel that I can smell that right away. And again, I think because I’m trying to make myself vulnerable as the character, I think the goal is never to humiliate someone else, which is maybe how I would distinguish Martha in a way like that she’s not there to read anyone, she’s there to share her own questions and musings, and philosophy, and frustrations, and unrequited love and all those things that everyone experiences.
Dito van Reigersberg (31:04):
Yeah, humiliating people is not her mode. Although getting someone to the edge of being like, “Oh my God,” can be fun. But I don’t want to make someone uncomfortable, I want to just bring them to the edge of what they’ve experienced before maybe.
Ben Binversie (31:21):
Stretch them a little bit.
Dito van Reigersberg (31:22):
Stretch them a little bit. Yeah.
Ben Binversie (31:25):
I always love doing that with my friends and they know that I like relish in making them expand a little bit and feel a little weird and a little uncomfortable with something new, whether it’s going to even such a small thing like going to a music concert of a band that I know that they’re not going to like. Like, even in small ways, I just feel like it’s good as a human being to kind of-
Dito van Reigersberg (31:49):
To go out outside your comfort zone.
Ben Binversie (31:52):
.... keep pushing out.
Dito van Reigersberg (31:52):
Yeah. I absolutely agree with that. And again, people are hungry for this communal experience, so if I’m interacting with the audience, it’s also not to pick on one person, but it’s to make us all feel like, “Oh, this is less of a performance that is being sent from the stage to me, but it’s like a family meeting that we’re all part of.” Yeah, I think that reinforces a feeling of, I don’t know, social delight.
Ben Binversie (32:28):
Where does Martha fit into the larger world of drag?
Dito van Reigersberg (32:33):
I would say there’s like a kind of drag queen who’s reading you or like aggressive or insulting drag queen that I would say she’s not. She’s also unusual because she’s singing-
Ben Binversie (32:47):
Instead of lip-syncing.
Dito van Reigersberg (32:48):
... as opposed to lip-syncing, which I think actually is another key into vulnerability. I think it’s impossible to sing and not be a little bit vulnerable because it’s your breath creating the sound with your body. I have such respect for lip-syncing drag queens, but it’s just a different mode. Yeah, the fact that I sing, the fact that there’s a band, the fact that I’m so audience interactive, and yeah, and maybe the fact that I’m not entirely successful in my illusion of turning into a woman. All those are part of it. Yeah.
Ben Binversie (33:24):
Yeah, you’re not necessarily trying to be completely what the audience might expect is a woman. You’re not pulling the shade over any of our eyes, we can see your chest hair.
Dito van Reigersberg (33:37):
Yeah, you can my chest hair and you can see-
Ben Binversie (33:37):
I can see it right now.
Dito van Reigersberg (33:39):
... You can see it right now. I feel like maybe what in tandem what this vulnerability is just like there’s some ways in which Martha fails at things. Like, she thinks that she’s a glamorous movie star, but she’s not quite, but she’s close. She thinks she’s really slick at flirting and seducing men, but maybe she’s a little clumsy. And maybe she thinks that she could be good at falling in love, but she is actually not, she doesn’t really know what she’s doing. Yeah, and I think people laugh at that and they also recognize that. It’s like, “Yeah, we all have an idea of what we’re supposed to be and then there’s the reality.”
Ben Binversie (34:26):
Yeah. I’ve heard someone say the farthest distance in the world is that between how we think things are and how they actually are, so maybe Martha’s got a little of that too. I’m interested in how Martha’s presence in your life has changed you, Dito, and how have you and Martha grown and changed, and do you feel like one influences the other, and how does that relationship work?
Dito van Reigersberg (34:55):
Well, I said earlier I think Dito is much more shy and less outspoken. But I do think that maybe in playing this character, I’ve become more comfortable accessing the Martha parts of Dito. I think there’s two things I used to think of as very much two things that were-
Ben Binversie (35:17):
Distinct, yeah.
Dito van Reigersberg (35:18):
... distinct in different silos and now they’re starting to grow together. I would say, if anything like Martha gives Dito courage in his real life to be like, “Hey, come on,” that’s ridiculous. Yeah. So I think she’s given me a little bravery.
Ben Binversie (35:38):
I’m also curious how the reception to Martha has changed over the 13 years that you’ve been doing it. I mean when you started, gay marriage in this country was not legal in all 50 States. Not to say that we’ve as a country in those 13 years become somehow incredibly accepting of different ideas of gender fluidity and sexual orientation, but I think we’ve made some steps and at least open some minds. So I’m curious how maybe you’ve seen that through the lens of your performances.
Dito van Reigersberg (36:12):
Yeah. I guess with the advent of RuPaul, and drag really being part of the mass culture, like mainstream culture includes drag which it didn’t use to, I think that’s been interesting because people now have an idea of what drag is. So even people who are like, “I know what drag is, it’s RuPaul’s Drag Race.” I’m like, “Well, that’s not what I do.”
Ben Binversie (36:42):
Let me tell you, buddy.
Dito van Reigersberg (36:44):
Not that there’s nothing wrong with that. And I do feel like the kinds of drag are proliferating and factoring out. Like there’s more and more kinds of drag and more and more categories, and I think there are more singing drag queens and the kinds of music they sing is becoming more varied and ... We used to think of drag as just one thing and I think it’s starting to have like a specificity and categories within it. So that’s one thing that’s changed. I did my first gay wedding not that long ago, like two years ago, a year ago.
Dito van Reigersberg (37:20):
Is that true? Yeah, that was my first gay wedding. I’ve done straight weddings. So yeah, I think change is going in a positive direction though there are signs to the opposite if you look at Washington, D.C. I think there are people when I first started who were nervous to be seen in my show. And straight guys were like, “I don’t know if I can go to your show.” And now that would seem very weird to be like ... It sounds quaint and old fashioned to say, but I think there was a thing even 10 or 12 years ago, there was like, “If I’m seen at a drag show, that means something about who I am.”
Dito van Reigersberg (38:09):
And now I think people are much more understanding about you could be a curious, interested, straight man going to see a drag show, and that doesn’t mean that you have all these closet feelings about wanting to come out or like to be a drag queen yourself. So I feel like this word, gender-fluid, which is an exciting term that didn’t exist for me 10 or 12 years ago, I think there’s a real excitement and it’s an interesting time of experimentation and new definitions around gender. And I think even straight people quote unquote have more permission, there’s that word again, to swim in the waters of like ...
Ben Binversie (39:00):
Uncertainty.
Dito van Reigersberg (39:01):
Uncertainly or at least have like, “Oh, I don’t know that I will ever have sex with a person of my same gender, but I enjoy drag,” or like, “Me going to a drag show doesn’t ... ” It sounds really funny to say that now, like, “Oh my God, I’m so scared that someone might have seen me at the drag show,” but that I think was a reality not so long ago.
Ben Binversie (39:20):
Yeah. It seems like you found a home in the spaces created by Martha or your theater company. And I’ve always noticed that weirdos tend to be so accepting and open, and like I don’t mean weirdos in a bad way because I’m a weirdo and a half.
Dito van Reigersberg (39:37):
No, we were just talking about weirdos at Austin, Texas.
Ben Binversie (39:39):
Yeah, but like-
Dito van Reigersberg (39:40):
Keep Austin weird.
Ben Binversie (39:41):
... Yeah, Keep Grinnell weird too, but like weird in the sense of being a few standard deviations away from the middle of the bell curve of social normality. What’s your take on why weird people are so open and accepting? Have you felt that way?
Dito van Reigersberg (40:00):
Yeah. I wouldn’t say that all weird people are open and accepting, but I would say that if you’ve experienced any kind of social alienation or being an outcast, you know how painful that is and so you don’t want that to happen to other people. Yeah, I’m thinking of a friend of mine who is trans and I’m always scared for her because there’s like a safety issue sometimes, but speaking of telling the truth... Like she’s so bold and kind of loud in any situation that I sometimes feel like the truth protects her.
Dito van Reigersberg (40:47):
And she’s also the kind of person who’s like sending out this good karma of like, “I don’t want anyone to feel alienated or isolated off to the side, so I’m really sending out this vibe of like I’m extending my hand out to you because that’s what I would want too, and I haven’t experienced that open hand a lot in my life, walking around the bell curve of society, the center of the bell curve.”
Dito van Reigersberg (41:15):
We were talking earlier today about the price of assimilation, and talking about how there’s some safety in assimilating and the fact that everyone knows what a ... You can’t say you don’t know what a drag queen, it means that you would say the drag gets diluted, because it’s part of the larger culture, but it also means that maybe gay people and gender nonconforming people are safer. Like everything in life, it’s a two-edged sword.
Ben Binversie (41:59):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Thinking about your performance tonight, we just had our semesterly drag show last weekend here at the college, but I imagine tonight’s show might be a whole different affair. How might you kind of cater your act to an audience like Grinnell other than Kum and Go jokes?
Dito van Reigersberg (42:21):
I make lots of jokes about Kum and Go, and that you’re well endowed. And then when I move on from there, I don’t know, I probably will be pulling a little bit from my experience as a victim of a small liberal arts college and knowing exactly what that feels like. Yeah. I kind of wish I was here for a whole week so I could do research on the weird nooks and crannies with Grinnell spirit. But I’ve done my research for the day and a half I’ve been here, and yeah. Mainly I’m going to agree with whoever gave this town the name, the something of the prairies.
Ben Binversie (43:08):
The Jewel of the Prairies.
Dito van Reigersberg (43:10):
Jewel of the Prairies. Because the architecture here is so gorgeous. So first I’m going to compliment everyone on their good taste of living in a gorgeous town.
Ben Binversie (43:20):
There we go.
Dito van Reigersberg (43:22):
And then I’ll just like-
Ben Binversie (43:23):
Go from there.
Dito van Reigersberg (43:23):
... alienate everyone with like fighting off the head of a rat. No, I’m just kidding. I’ll do some crazy Yoko Ono shit.
Ben Binversie (43:34):
Nice. Well, thank you Dito and Martha for what will surely be an exciting performance, and also for taking the time to talk.
Dito van Reigersberg (43:44):
Of course, that was a fun interview.
Ben Binversie (43:46):
And continuing to unleash Martha’s spirit into the world.
Dito van Reigersberg (43:50):
Unleash the dragon.
Ben Binversie (44:09):
Dito performed as Martha Graham Cracker at Grinnell back in November, and may or may not have visited the fine establishment known as Rabbit’s Tavern later that evening. Check out our webpage to find more information on Dito and Martha. Being there in the room for the performance is another level, but for now we’re confined to the digital realm, so you can see some of Martha’s performances on YouTube. And there’s a link to Martha’s original album, Lashed But Not leashed, on Bandcamp as well.
Ben Binversie (44:36):
Follow Martha on Twitter @TheMarthaMan, Instagram @Martha_graham_cracker, and on Facebook as Martha Graham, where Dito has been doing some live videos recently. Dito got very into Grinnell when he visited, strolling around town and even found his way into the bookstore to buy a Grinnell hat. He was genuinely curious about our little Jewel on the Prairie, and he even taught me something about Grinnell. I had no idea, but apparently Grinnell, the town, was going to be named Stella, but good old J.B. convinced the others that his name would be a good fit, as he said, “A rare and concise name, and so modest too.”
Ben Binversie (45:14):
Well, thanks J.B. for making us always have to clarify, “No, not Cornell, Grinnell.” That’s it for today’s show. Music comes from Brett Newski, Martha Graham Cracker and Poddington Bear. If you’d like to contact the show, email us at podcast@grinnell.edu or check out our website, grinnell.edu/podcast. Make sure you subscribe to the show to get new episodes when they come out. And follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to keep up with the podcast. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, pass it along to a friend and take care. I’m your host Ben Binversie. Stay weird Grinnellians.