Synopsis:
The Captain’s Log

Star Date, 2007

Lilly Linda Le Strange had been to Aruba and back, an unusual destination for an Astronautess of any kind but ideal as a hide-out for a lady on the lam. While on that island paradise she had been delighted to discover she was not alone when her Boston chums, Gyles and his sister Cornelia Chilton showed up. She was less delighted to discover shadows from her past that she had expensively put to rest in Mount Auburn Cemetery only last year. But let me back pedal a bit in order to fill in the clueless, a group that might also include me.

The story begins in Boston where Diva Le Strange is basking in the glory of her hit show Glamour Galore performed nightly at the Club Crazy. But the action swiftly zips off to Aruba after Madame Le Strange is chased out of Boston by the security forces protecting the Essential Center Shopping Mall. Her sojourn on the island paradise is cut short after a surprise reunion with the miraculously resurrected Urna Flamanté. When these temperamental thespians inadvertently commingle sparks fly, alerting the disparate forces of Scar Face Malone, Fathead Fabiano, the FBI, and the CIA. These unlikely confraternities join together in hot pursuit of the show girls who, barely escaping the jaws of outrage, arrive home in Bean Town. There the panting miscreants take refuge; La Diva at Lilly Land barricading herself behind her festive pink fence and Urna at the bat cave in the basement of the Follies Derrière.

Safely moored at her home port, Lilly is cosseted by Betty the Bounder who following Oprah’s good example, suggests a book to read while she hastens off to draw La Diva a soothing bubble bath. But for the moment Lilly resists any literary diversions and instead makes a dash for the Casa Romero Restaurant where she assembles the Glamour Gang for a pow wow to pitch her new show, Naughty Astronautess.

This is when the bomb hits big time because the reluctant Glamourites have to inform their headliner that Naughty is dead on the launching pad. The Club Crazy had been closed and reduced to a mere footnote in theatrical history by George Wortheley, the unlikely producer of Glamour Galore.

George was moved to this act of vicious retribution after Lilly crashed his party at the opening of the Essential Center Shopping Mall. At that gala event, Lilly had gleefully revealed to one and all a side of George’s character that was hard to believe, leaving everybody gasping with horror. This bunch of Bostonian big shots included all the swells of Massachusetts from the Governor on down. George’s trophy wife, Rosalind Wortheley, was prominent among them, and as a result of Lilly’s revelations about her hubby; she ended up at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in a coma.

Bereft of backing, cabaret, costumes or a thin dime, the Le Strange dame retires to her hide-out in the South End behind the afore mentioned pink fence. Safely ensconced at home, she finally gets around to reading the book Betty had suggested, Extravaganza King. From this source, recounting the theatrical history of “fancy dress” reviews at the turn of the twentieth century in Boston, La Diva gains inspiration and hope.

In the meantime the resurrected Urna carrying no baggage but a lot of history and a remarkably impressive make-over, appeals to her one time protégé, Lilly, for a co-starring role in the upcoming production of Naughty Astronautess. Lilly’s disinclination to give Urna even the time of day, much less a plum prize performing in the next Glamour production, shoves Urna into an unlikely collaboration with Dilbert, the head bartender at the Follies Derrière, a notorious drag bar in Bay Village.

At this point in the narrative the action gets a bit murky and a number of digressions usurp the swift flowing plot, such as Clovis Galicurchi, maestro of the Gay Men’s Chorus, being kidnapped by Scarface Malone’s gang of Zelengorian thugs. This is followed by an exposition on the forgotten history of Betty the Bounder, Lilly’s dresser, who at one time had promise, some of which blossomed briefly on a South American tour with the Ballet de Bronx. There are also a couple of choice scenes involving the torrid romance between Gyles Chilton, the studious antique dealer, and his “hot and sexy” lover, Val. And where would glamour be without mystery? Not in this trilogy that’s for sure. That enticing ingredient is provided by the recumbent Rosalind Wortheley languishing at the hospital where she has been woefully neglected by her husband George but visited periodically by an unknown military figure whose true nature will have great bearing on her future. So much for digressions, now let us return to the meat of the matter.

Needless to say Diva Le Strange surmounts all obstacles in her relentless pursuit of stardom, gathering all the needed support to stage her extravagant version of astronautic hoopla, Naughty Astronautess. This production involves many unlikely enthusiasts right up to the Mayor’s wife, Muriel Brunelleschi. In the picturesque precincts of the Rose Garden in the Fenway neighborhood, the Naughty Astronautess finally blasts off and true to her nature she takes a trip well beyond everyone’s expectations into the dizzying ionosphere.