Jan on channelling Oscar Wilde, a decade of drag and telling fans to ‘have sex in the bathroom’
RuPaul’s Drag Race star Jan spills on OSCAR at the Crown role as Oscar Wilde. (Danny Kaan)
RuPaul's Drag Race star Jan spills on OSCAR at the Crown role as Oscar Wilde. (Danny Kaan)
Jan – full legal name Jan Sport – is burning up the West End in her UK musical theatre debut as Oscar Wilde in OSCAR at the Crown.
But there’s a whole lot more to the theatrical dance party experience than just a soundtrack of bangers and a campy twist on one of history most retroactively beloved queer authors.
Jan, who stamped her name onto backpacks around the world on season 12 and All Stars 6 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, as well as some little shows called America’s Got Talent and The Voice, has remained in the limelight with a longevity that most drag artists would envy.
In OSCAR at the Crown, she takes the reins as the titular Oscar in charge of an underground bunker in an Orwellian future where the only things to survive are reality TV, glitter balls, and the complete works of Wilde
Speaking to PinkNews, Jan, whose run has just been extended “by phenomenal demand” shares how the show is “the most fun you can legally have fun in a theatre”, how the queer community will always find their voice against opposing forces (onstage and in the real world) and what returning to the show a decade after her drag debut has taught her.
PinkNews: A decade after your drag debut, and Jan has returned to OSCAR at the Crown after its own premiere in New York in 2019. Why did you want to come back to the production and what’s different about performing it in London?
Jan: So much is different, but it’s always amazing to hear about stories of people who have been friends and creators together for as long as me and my friends have been. And when an opportunity presents itself that levels ourselves up in our careers, when an opportunity like this comes along to be a part of something that we all helped create a decade ago, it’s a no-brainer for me.
OSCAR at the Crown has just aligned so perfectly with where I’m at with my career. A decade ago, before I even started to do drag, I wanted to be in theatre and I was lucky enough that I got to dip my toes back in with DRAG: The Musical for this past year. But it’s crazy to be back in the saddle.
Not only has the show changed but all of our styles have evolved. Me as a performer, I originally played Bosie, and now I’m Oscar, Mark [Mauriello] as a writer, Andrew [Barrett Cox] as a musician and choreographer; it’s really exciting to know what we had and how proud we were a decade ago, and to see that continuing to unfold a decade later.
And you play Oscar – like the Oscar Wilde – in the production, but in a very different setting than the man himself would ever have found himself in. How did you approach that, and what did it teach you about Jan as a performer?
I definitely was not somebody who would consider myself to be an actor. I always lead with singing and now I am so grateful to have done and found drag because I really feel like it unlocked a lot of the things that I felt like were holding me back as an actor back. And to have that experience, it’s really cool to be able to bring all of that back into the show a decade later.
Inc terms of Oscar himself, what I found interesting about him and about his history was that he felt like a drag artist. He kind of has a lot of that pomposity [that drag queens have].
And thinking about what the material means today and how we discuss personality and performance and persona, I approached it by bringing some of myself into the piece. Not to give anything away, but if I was a cult leader, I would be a little kinder at first.
And the majority of people will know Jan, for better or worse, by the edit you received on your seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race. What might surprise fans about you in this production?
I’m excited to show people a darker, more sinister side of me. OSCAR at the Crown takes you to a darker place, and a lot of that comes from a need and a want to keep a community together, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I hope people will notice the nuances that trickle and bleed into the performance until the climax.
And who doesn’t love a climax?
Oh, honey, exactly. We literally say in the show: “Go have sex in the bathroom, we don’t care.” And if they’re doing that over there while we’re hitting the climax of the show, so be it.
Period. You mentioned the need for a community in OSCAR at the Crown. Do any parallels of the queer community in the real world inform your performance, particularly with reference to the current US administration, or is it a ‘leave your thoughts at the door’ performance?
Oscar would like this person [the audience] coming into the bunker to not think about the outside world, right. But as the show goes on, as in real life, you find that that’s kind of impossible to do. And if you ignore something for so long, it’s going to explode.
I think with everything going on in the world, it’s hard not to bring that into your performance, and be ignorant to the fact that a lot of these things are happening in our world. People are trying to close in, and if we’re not careful, we can be silenced.
I feel like a lot of shows are about that right now. I mean, honey, we’re going to get Wicked: For Good soon. We’ve already seen Dr. Dillamond going through it. But at the core of OSCAR at the Crown is a message of keeping community together, and that even though we are going through difficult times, we will always triumph, and look out for one another.
A lot of times we can feel hopeless in this world and we can feel like we’re alone and that we’re screaming into the void for change, but it’s nice to know that those screams are heard by the people in our community.
Final question; if Oscar Wilde himself saw the show, what would he say?
I mean I think – I hope – that he would gag at the fact that there is a dystopian musical about him. I think he was probably hoping something like this would happen in the future.
And I hope that wherever he is, he’s giving us his seal of approval and dancing with us.
Jan is starring in OSCAR at the Crown at The Crown theatre until 16 November.
Tickets to OSCAR at the Crown are available now.
