Cloaked in long, faux-fur coats and with gold aviators resting on their faces, drag queens Tyler Ashley (the self-dubbed “Dauphine of Bushwick”) and Charlene Incarnate enter Superfine, a lesbian-owned farm-to-table restaurant in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood. The room buzzes with voices as ABBA’s “Take a Chance on Me” and Chic’s “Good Times” play overhead, and a disco ball spins as patrons dive into breakfast burritos, French toast, and Bloody Marys. Light pours into the space, a converted vacuum cleaner/car parts warehouse, as it has since it opened nearly two decades ago.
Charlene’s eyes smoulder with purple and Tyler’s face is covered in a delicately crafted eyemask of black and glitter. Neither wear corsets or padding or wig, but both are still serving curves and legs for days. Superfine patrons are eagerly awaiting the raucous, delicious hell Charlene and Tyler are about to unleash in the form of Baby Tea Brunch, billed as New York’s only four-hour marathon drag brunch, for their fifth month in a row, once again totally sold-out.
I went to my first drag brunch some 10 years ago in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. Drag queens in giant wigs, their bodies sutured closed in corsets and pantyhose, tottered on high heels and performed cute lipsyncs onstage, occasionally wandering through the audience while I availed myself of Bloody Marys. The show finished, we left, and another group came through for the same experience shortly after. You’ll find a typical scene in cities across the country each weekend.
Let me be clear: Baby Tea Brunch is not that brunch. This one douses brunches like that in gasoline, sets them on fire, and dances in the flames.
Throughout the four (plus) hours of Baby Tea, Tyler (in sky-high neon stilettos) and Charlene (in her signature heeled Timberlands) almost never stop moving. If they’re not on the mic, casually chatting about shitting yourself before a middle school cross-country race, they’re lip syncing and dancing to sets of songs as varied as J.Lo vs. Shakira, Wicked, Cats, Disney classics, “mindless pop music,” Annie, and more. That might seem run of the mill at first glance, but they do it all while making Superfine their jungle gym. They move across every available (and sometimes unavailable) surface of the restaurant, climbing its railings and chairs and turning spaces between tables into tiny runways.
The event’s DIY spirit runs rampant, with the audience there for every costume change and track queued on a laptop. Tyler and Charlene infuse explosive energy, wicked improvisational skill, incendiary stage presence, and a healthy sense of irony into each set. “The inner child, what does it want?” Charlene tells me about the show. “To throw something on and listen to her favorite song all silly. That’s essentially what we’re doing.”
