Theater Review: "Hot Greeks" at the Hypnodrome

To complement their wildly successful (and deservedly so) run of Pearls over Shanghai (running through August), Russell Blackwood and his merrily debaucherous Thrillpeddlers are simultaneously putting on the only other scripted Cockettes musical, Hot Greeks. It's a loose interpretation of Aristophanes' Lysistrata (the women of Greece try to end the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex from their men), in which the soldiers are college footballers and the women are cheerleaders. Most of the actors are in drag (if in clothes at all), plenty of double entendres are involved ("Everybody's got a buddy on the front"), and exposed cocks are — often literally — flying everywhere. The plot is paper-thin, but the company's enthusiasm, the lush costuming, and some of the songs ("The Hot Twat of Tangier") are quite entertaining. The second act, hosted by original Cockette composer and actor Scrumbly Koldewyn, plays as a depraved history and cabaret performance of random songs from other 1970s Cockettes productions, including the hilarious "Journey to the Center of Uranus!" Greeks feels more like a B-side to the truly thrilling Pearls, but together they revive a sexy history and tradition that feels truly San Francisco. It's freakishly fun.