Legendary cult filmmaker John Waters is most synonymous with his hometown of Baltimore, but folks in the DC area can catch his live holiday performance “A John Waters Christmas” at The Birchmere in Alexandria, Va., on Dec. 21 — with just a few days before Christmas.
Listen to our full conversation on my Beyond Fame podcast.
WTOP’s Jason Fraley presents ‘A John Waters Christmas’ at The Birchmere (Part 1)
Legendary cult filmmaker John Waters is most synonymous with his hometown of Baltimore, but folks in the DC area can catch his live holiday performance “A John Waters Christmas” at The Birchmere in Alexandria, Va., on Dec. 21 — with just a few days before Christmas.
“I rewrite it every year,” Waters told WTOP. “Is it about how everything has broken down, nothing works, has COVID killed everything, has it killed Christmas? So I’m desperate in the first act and then I rally, I’m a half-full kind of guy, and so is my audience, so I’m giving you advice on how to make it better, even though it would be a completely crazy way to do it .”
The original 70-minute monologue applies comedic Christmas themes to crime, religion, politics, fashion and music, followed by 20 minutes of audience questions.
“I never get plays — and I talk about hideous things,” Waters said. “People who would hate me know enough not to come now. Not many people get innocently dragged into one of my shows and I totally think I’m going to come out and sing Andy Williams Christmas carols or something. … Evil Santa is watching over me.”
When WTOP last spoke with Waters in 2017, he insisted that “Baltimore is way cooler than DC.” He still believes that, but says the DC crowd has always been welcoming.
“Everybody in Baltimore thinks DC is kind of square, and everybody in Washington thinks everybody in Baltimore is red, and they’re both right,” Waters told WTOP. “The only thought I hate about Washington is driving there. It’s all drunk on the road, but it’s got great museums, great clubs…so I’ve always had a great home for my movies in Washington.”
He has other, riskier memories of the protests in the nation’s capital.
“I’ve been to a lot of good riots there,” Waters said. “I peed on the Pentagon once, too [President Nixon’s Attorney General] John Mitchell looked out the window and saw me! Just different crazy revolutionary things in the 1960s. I went to a Martin Luther King march. … Always take a train if you are coming for a protest because parking in a riot is not that easy.”
Born in Baltimore in 1946, Waters grew up in the nearby suburb of Lutherville, Maryland. His mother was ironically Roman Catholic and has fond memories of childhood holidays.
“It was very functional and cool, I loved it,” Waters said. “The Christmas tree fell on my grandmother once, which I remember with joy. She wasn’t really hurt or anything, but I used that in one of my movies… when Divine knocked down the Christmas tree.”
Iconic drag queen Divine starred in Waters’ indie films from the start, including shorts like “Roman Candles” (1966), “Eat Your Makeup” (1968) and “The Diane Linkletter Story” (1970), and features like ” Mondo Trasho’ (1969) and ‘Multiple Maniacs’ (1970).
“Divine lived down the street with his parents when I was in high school,” Waters said. “His parents ran a nursery and Divine was their only child. … Divina was very different in high school. He was mocked by teachers and students. He was really tortured at school, so he used that anger later to create the character of Divine.”
Together they created the cult classic “Pink Flamingos” (1972), which joined “Female Trouble” (1974) and “Desperate Living” (1977) as Waters’ so-called “Trash Trilogy”.
“I guess [critics] just put [that label] around it because after that I did ‘Polyester,’ and it wasn’t a midnight movie, it was rated R and it was more commercial,” Waters said. “It all happened by accident, including ‘Hairspray’ being that ad.”
Indeed, his 1988 film “Hairspray” became a hit Broadway musical in 2002, with songs such as “Good Morning Baltimore,” “Welcome to the ’60s” and “You Can’t Stop the Beat.”
“They did a great job and it respected my film,” Waters said. “‘Hairspray’ was a dance movie, it wasn’t original music. … “Hairspray” turned him into a musical and made him sing. I was there as a studio executive, I gave notes, I was there in every city when they did it. … It was a very good experience. I learned an enormous amount.”
Today, his legacy lives on with the 50th anniversary release of “Pink Flamingos.”
“It just came out this year, Criterion put it out and we had theater shows and everything,” Waters said. “When I went to the theaters to present it, the audience was in their 20s, they’d never seen it and it still worked – I’m the dirtiest person alive, I won!”
WTOP’s Jason Fraley presents ‘A John Waters Christmas’ at The Birchmere (Part 2)
Listen to our full conversation on my Beyond Fame podcast.