RUBY LYNN REYNER
- LGBTQHP
- Nov 15, 2023
- 17 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
PLAY-HOUSE OF THE RIDICULOUS, PERFORMER, MUSICIAN
Ruby Lynn Reyner is a seasoned performer with a longstanding career, notably as the leading actress in John Vaccaro’s Play-House of the Ridiculous (1967-1988) theater troupe. In addition to her theatrical pursuits, Ruby is the frontwoman of the band Ruby and The Rednecks. She is also one of my closest friends.
I met Ruby when I was fresh into New York City, alone without friends and not yet taking a stab at establishing a social life. She was riding on her red (everything is red with Ruby: hair, clothes, make-up, glasses, accessories) scooter and hit a man casually walking with his Whole Foods grocery bags down 14th Street. As she drove away without stopping to check in on him, I saw the sticker on the back of her scooter that read, “I Don’t Give A Fuck.”
A few days later, I saw her sun tanning in Union Square. I walked over, and we talked. I immediately realized she was the pivotal Downtown New York City fixture, Ruby Lynn Reyner. For nearly seven years, Ruby and I have been the best of friends. We laugh, sing, and talk about Downtown drama 50-plus years ago through current. It is always a blast when we hit the town. One night at midnight, we went to an open mic piano-backed night at Alan Cumming’s club, Club Cumming. Surrounded by young queer types—a foreign concept to many elders—Ruby proudly exclaimed she had no toes and started singing Cry, the Johnnie Ray hit written by Churchill Kohlman. Johnnie Ray was a closeted gay singer who had his biggest hit in 1951. As soon as she belted the first lyrics about a sweetheart writing a goodbye letter, the audience wept. They then laughed at her ridiculous shticks and erupted in thunderous applause.
We have countless memories together, and I cherish our laughs—so many of
them. It shakes me to my core when Ruby is sick and in pain. She is at that point in her life. Being a radical performer stuck in a time warp is not a healthy lifestyle with a retirement plan. It is difficult for a person who fought the system their entire life to adjust to a government-dependent life in their old age. We sing Cry, and then she gets mad at me, throws her hands in the air, and yells that she cannot harmonize with me. This is on video!
Without a doubt, Ruby’s time in John Vaccaro’s Play-House of the Ridiculous shaped every aspect of Ruby’s life. The Play-House of the Ridiculous dismantled previously venerated foundations of the art form, rendering naturalistic acting and classical narrative structures no longer indispensable requisites for a work of merit. Extravagant performances, surreal narrative arcs, and ostentatious stagecraft and attire came to characterize this theatrical progeny, which sought to jolt, disconcert, and challenge the sensibilities of unsuspecting audiences. She is a contrarian with a great sense of memory. Mega rock stars KISS stole their make-up from her, and proto-punkers The New York Dolls opened for her. There were no ripped jeans in fashion before Ruby and her ridiculous Rednecks. When I pushed her to describe the sense of freedom representative of the times, she compared it to “doing everything that would shock your parents.”
I am honored to be the Executor of her Artistic Estate. Most of her archive, spanning over 50 years of off-the-wall material (Warhol through Singing in The ER), is digitized and available on our site. Do not call it ephemera! It is timeless and larger than something so esoteric. Folks, we are talking about countless scripts, playbills, flyers, and audio and video recordings. As a kicker, I uploaded an interview I conducted with Ruby in 2020, which is excerpted below.
2024 update: Read Ruby Lynn Reyner's obituary here.
—August Bernadicou, Executive Director of The LGBTQ History Project
“I love theater. I immediately knew that I was built for the stage and that it was built for me. It was like something I had dreamt of my whole life. As a teenager, I would sneak into New York City. I went to college for a few months but then dropped out and moved to the City. I worked at a clothing firm and met a girl named Sara Screech. We modeled coats together on 7th Avenue. People would approach us and say, 'Come here, darling, let me feel the material.'
One day, Sara invited me to a rehearsal for Heaven Grand and Amber Orbit, the play she was in with the Play-House of the Ridiculous theater troupe. It was at the director John Vaccaro’s loft on Great Jones Street. It was an unfinished and fabulous and huge loft. As soon as I walked into his loft, I never looked back.
John looked at me and immediately said, 'Get on the stage!' He booked me right on the spot. I played a firewoman with Sarah Screech. I thought and hoped that I would one day play the leading character, Alice, the Conqueror’s Wife. I told myself that something would happen to Beverly Grant, who was playing the Conqueror’s Wife. Right before the play started, Beverly Grant twisted her ankle. Before I knew it, Ondine and Louis Walden came to my apartment and said, 'You're going on tonight as Alice, the Conqueror’s Wife—Queen of the Universe.' So, my dream became realized, and I went on that night with no rehearsal.
It was Off Off Broadway, and we got away with everything. Anything went. It was shocking. It was disturbing. It was innovative. It was like an acid trip. There was nothing sacrosanct. In the play Cockstrong, we had a 12-foot penis that hung from the ceiling. The penis was hooked up to the faucet in the dressing room. The penis came at the climax of the Kama Sutra ballet and sprayed water all over the audience. It was during a heatwave. The air conditioning was broken, and the audience loved it.
We had a song that went, 'Formaldehyde baby lives in formaldehyde swims in formaldehyde. Where do the four winds blow? She's the Esther Williams of the sideshow.' It's hard to explain how we got away with it and what the sense of freedom was like. I would say it’s like doing everything that would shock your parents. You can't do things like have a 12-foot dick hanging over the stage and cumming over the audience anymore. You couldn't have a play with a formaldehyde baby. Come on.
Of course, there was glitter and glam as well. I had one review where the reviewer said, 'I would love to have the glitter concessions at Ruby Lynn Reiner’s makeup table.' I didn’t buy glitter. John would order glitter in barrels. Warhol Superstar Holly Woodlawn would cover her body in baby oil and roll around in it on the ground. She would be completely covered from head to toe in glitter. You would sleep and wake up with glitter all over your sheets. Even if you showered, there would still be glitter. One time, John ran backstage and said, 'Don’t use the red glitter! Don’t use the red glitter! It’s made out of glass.' I had been using it on my lips and thought it was crunchy.
The plays would be packed. Word would get out, and we never needed to promote them ourselves. People would come from all over. You would have people in mink coats sitting beside people in ripped-up jeans. Back then, we ripped our own jeans. They didn’t come pre-ripped. People would come to see what gay theater was, and gay theater was fabulous. We weren’t judging anything or anyone. We were harmonious. We lived together and performed together.
Acting shaped who I am and is my entire life. Theater taught me everything. One day recently, my neighbor came over with her daughter. She said Irina has a part in this play, and she has stage fright. She asked if I could talk to her. I said, 'Listen, no matter what you do or how you screw up, nothing will scare people away from loving you. They are going to love you no matter what you do.' And that's the way I feel about the theater.”
COMPLETE INTERVIEW WITH RUBY LYNN REYNER FROM 2019:
August Bernadicou: What was Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit about?
Ruby Lynn Reyner: I was a ticket-taker. I was Heaven Grand. Jackie Curtis wrote it on the train to South Bend, Indiana, where the whole company was going for the pornography and censorship conference. On the train, Jackie Curtis wrote Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit, and he had a racing forum and two horses. One was named Heaven Grand, and the other was named Amber Orbit. All the other names in the play—Rumb-a-Line Sam, Lord Pass-the-Hat. They were all horses in the race on that day.
August: You were raped?
Ruby: Heaven Grand was being raped by Rumb-a-Line Sam, who was the barker at the circus. It was like a sideshow. It was really a sideshow. He was the circus barker, and he was raping me. He was singing, “Heaven, I'm in Heaven,” as he was raping me because he was in me. Get it? Get it?
August: Why do you think back then you could make a play where someone was getting raped and it'd be okay?
Ruby: Anything went. Anything goes. You could do anything. You could do anything because it was like anything—it was Off Broadway, and that's where we got away with everything. There was nothing that was sacrosanct. You could say whatever you wanted. We had a 12-foot penis hooked up to the back—the faucet in the back of the dressing room. It sprayed—was hooked up to the penis, and the penis came at the end of this Kama Sutra ballet and came over the audience, but it just came water.
It was a heat wave, and the air conditioning broke, and the audience went, "Oh." They loved it. Anyway, yes. You could do anything. I remember in Europe, I didn't go to Europe. I was already in Europe with my boyfriend at the time, Robert. We were making a movie, or we were editing a movie. They went to Europe, and Ellen Stewart came, and she was hooking up the penis to spray over the audience. They came and they arrested her and confiscated the dick, the 12-foot dick, which was made out of Styrofoam, I think.
August: When you moved to New York, who was the first person you met in the Theatre of the Ridiculous world?
Ruby: Sarah Screech was one of the firewomen in Conquest of the Universe, which was like the chorus. She invited me to come to a rehearsal. She knew I was an actress, or I studied acting in college, and I was just out of college. I really never finished college. I did like a half a year. She said, "Want to come with me to rehearsal? I'm in a play that I'm doing with the Play-House of the Ridiculous." I said, "Yes, sure."
I went to the rehearsal at John Vaccaro's loft on Great Jones Street. It was this big, unfinished loft. It was fabulous. It was huge. John saw me, took one look at me, and he said, "Yes, get on the stage." He put me right in the play. I play the firewoman next to Sarah Screech. We were firewomen. Because I'm an actress, I thought of the method. I thought, one day I'm going to be the conqueror's wife. Something's going to happen to her, and I'm going to be his new wife. I thought to myself, that's how I did my part.
Beverly Grant was playing the conqueror's wife. She twisted her ankle and broke her ankle. Ondine and Louis Walden came to my apartment and said, "You're going on tonight as Alice, the conqueror's wife, queen of the universe." I did it. I went on that night with no rehearsal.
August: Can you tell the story about when you were rolling around in glass or Holly Woodlawn was…
Ruby: No. That was Penny Arcade.
August: Oh, no. That was Penny Arcade?
Ruby: Yes. She used to roll around.
August: No, I thought you said it was someone else one time.
Ruby: John used to say, "The only thing you're good for is rolling around and getting glass in your tits."
August: I thought you said one time you were somewhere, and Candy Darling or Holly Woodlawn was rolling on the floor or putting on this glitter, and John said that's…
Ruby: Oh, no, no. That was glitter. That was Holly Woodlawn. John used to order glitter by the barrel. He was the first person in the world to use glitter. He would order it by the barrel. Holly would cover herself in baby oil and roll around and cover her whole body in glitter, which never came off. The glitter, I would wake up with glitter on my sheets forever. Even months after the play was over, the glitter would stay on me. It was glitter time.
August: Glitter time.
Ruby: Oh. I know. John runs backstage one day and says, "Okay, everybody, listen to me. You can't use the red glitter. Don't use the red glitter." I was putting the red glitter on my lips. I was using it on my lips every night. I was packing thick lead glitter on my lips. I would crunch on it. I would hear this crunching noise. We said to John, "John, why can't we use the red glitter?" He said, "It's made out of glass."
August: Do you think someone could be the same style director that he was now, with all the safe work laws and anti-harassment laws and things like that?
Ruby: In a word, no. I don't think that could happen anymore. It's not free. We're not free anymore. You can't say it. We have to be politically correct. Nothing John did was politically correct. Nothing.
August: What's the greatest lesson someone can get from the Theatre of the Ridiculous, the genre?
Ruby: It was the Play-House of the Ridiculous.
August: No, this is about the—.
Ruby: The whole genre.
August: Yes, exactly.
Ruby: That you just could do anything. You could do anything in the world. Instead of being shocked, people would love you.
August: Can you talk about some of the negative audience reactions?
Ruby: I did the crow in The Moke Eater, and I had to eat a piece of raw liver. Sometimes it was bad. People in the audience used to—The Moke Eater was so disturbing that people in the audience used to throw up. Literally. It was cruel. We eviscerated this guy who wanders into town. That was The Moke Eater. It was about this guy, this traveling salesman, who wandered into this town with these savage creatures. We wind up eviscerating him. We eat him, his bowels out. We just kill him that way.
August: When did you realize that there would be a 26-year-old in your apartment asking you questions like this? Did you realize you were onto something when you were younger?
Ruby: Oh, yes. I loved doing this theater almost immediately. I knew this was made for me. It was like I had dreamt of this my whole life. I walked into John's loft and never looked back. I was always like that. Immediately, people would show up at La MaMa to see what Vaccaro's next play was going to be, because he was so shocking and innovative. Nobody had ever seen this kind of theater before.
Eventually, it just petered out. He didn't work for his audiences. I tried to explain to him in Pineapple Face. That was, I think, the last Vaccaro play I did where I played Noriega. It was built around Noriega. That's who they called Pineapple Face, because he had terrible skin. Anyway, I played Noriega's prostitute mistress. I had these big, huge tits and a big ass I put on. People really didn't come like they used to come. They weren't packing the house. We tried to explain to John, you have to work for it. You have to promote it. He'd just get pissed off. He'd say, "These fuckers, fuck them all." He just thought, I'll give up—he gave up. He just gave up on the theater. He would piss them off.
August: Did he evolve with the times?
Ruby: He did Indira Gandhi's Daring Device or something, I think it was called. I wasn't in that. Sometimes, he was more political. Then other times, it was more of a social satire. He would always just do anything to shock people. He would come backstage. In The Moke Eater, he'd say this, "I want you to tear them up. I want you to kill them, really." He'd work the little monsters. He'd work them up. He'd just get them all vile and vicious. They were like the—but yes, I don't know. He was very passionate.
August: Can you talk about some of the Charles Ludlam plays you saw and how his style differentiated from John's?
Ruby: I never did a Charles play because I think that John would have—John considered me his property. I was the star of the Play-House. I was the star ingenue, and Gordon was the male ingenue. We just were happy to do John's plays. I think he would have been pissed off if we did Charles’s plays. I saw Charles’s plays, and I loved them. They were kind of campy. They weren't shocking. They were just campy, but they were very well done. He was great at what he did. It was just different.
August: Did you see his version of Conquest of the Universe, When Queens Collide?
Ruby: No. I didn't get to because I was doing Conquest and he was doing When Queens Collide at the same time.
We went to the Obies, and we had one table for the Play-House of the Ridiculous and another table with the whole Ridiculous Theatrical Company. When they got their award, we went, boo, and they went, yay. We got our award, we went, yay, and they went, boo. It was very juvenile.
August: There was communication between the two groups. You all were friends?
Ruby: Yes. Some of us were friends, yes. The contentiousness was between John and Charles and mostly coming from John. It's a good thing that he's not alive anymore because he would get pissed off at this interview.
August: Why did he carry it for the rest of his life?
Ruby: I never could figure that out. He held onto it like a dog with a bone. He never let it go. He turned against Ellen Stewart, which I never could figure out. He just turned his rage towards her. She started Cafe La MaMa.
Joe Cino, who founded Caffe Cino, killed himself, and she took all his audiences and whatever he was doing. She opened La MaMa to extend that, to keep it going.
August: Explain to an 18-year-old in South Korea what La MaMa is.
Ruby: La MaMa was the Downtown anything goes theater. It was shocking. It was disturbing. It was innovative. It was amazing. It was like an acid trip. It was like—.
August: Can you explain Downtown at this time?
Ruby: Downtown at the time of the '70s?
August: Yes.
Ruby: It was fabulous. It was like a circus. It was just free. Everything was very free. It was like the essence of freedom. You could walk down—what's 8th Street called over there?
August: St. Mark's.
Ruby: St. Mark's Place. Right. Everybody used to walk down in different stages of nudity with different wild outfits on and glitter. It was amazing. It was like the circus, psychedelic circus.
August: Did you all ever get in trouble?
Ruby: When they went to Europe.
August: Did you?
Ruby: I never did, no. People used to wait for me in the lobby. When I came out of the lobby, they'd say, "You see, I told you she was a man." They couldn't figure out whether I was a man or a woman. I was tempted to show them my vagina.
August: Wait, so you're a woman?
Ruby: Yes, I'm a woman. I am a woman. Hear me roar.
August: Okay, stop. I'm covered in your fucking cat hair, Ruby.
Ruby: I'm sorry. The whole apartment is covered in cat hair. Yes, it was a totally different time. It was true freedom, which we don't have anymore. Ironically, the very people who raised this generation, I don't know what they taught them about freedom.
August: Maybe you can explain the kind of freedom that our generation needs, which we can learn from you.
Ruby: It's hard to explain that. It's like, think of anything you want to do that would shock your parents. That's freedom.
I mean, you couldn't have a 10-foot dick hanging over the stage and cumming over the audience. You couldn't do that. You couldn't have a thalidomide baby. Come on. We had a song called “thalidomide baby lives in formaldehyde, swims in formaldehyde. Where do the four winds blow? Thalidomide. Thalidomide. She's the Esther Williams of the sideshow. Thalidomide.” You're never going to have that. Never.
August: Why do you think there was less overt gayness in Vaccaro's work?
Ruby: Less overt gayness?
August: Is that true or not?
Ruby: No. We were as overt as you could get. We didn't care whether you were gay or straight.
August: Was Ludlam's work safer and more accessible?
Ruby: Yes, I think so.
August: Can you talk about some of his plays?
Ruby: I saw one. I saw The Mystery of Irma Vep, and he did a lot of costume changes. I loved the way Charles did costume changes. He would come back as a different character. He was very talented. His acting was fabulous. John would get on the stage, and he'd start directing you in the middle of the play when he was on the stage as a character. He played Ning-a-Fling-a-Dung. She was an armless, legless woman. You couldn't do that. In a million years, you couldn't do that nowadays. He would run over on his knees. He would do it all on his knees, and he would run over to where you were on the stage and just, "No, you're in the wrong place. Get over there. Get over there."
It was distracting. He would love it when people improvised. I remember one scene in Conquest, Ondine saw an old boyfriend in the middle of the audience, and he was playing the Queen of Mars. I'm pretty sure that was his part. He jumped off the stage and ran to Yoncey and said, "I told you never to come here. I told you never to come here." It was in the middle of the play. He ripped a big hunk of the guy's hair out of his head. He ripped it out of his head, and he held it up to the audience. He went, you see? You see what he made me do? The audience applauded. They thought it was part of the play.
August: Didn't he push you down the stairs one time?
Ruby: No, that was John.
August: Oh, this was Ludlam?
Ruby: No, this was Ondine.
August: Oh, Ondine did this to someone?
Ruby: Ondine did this to someone. He played the Queen of Mars. Ondine was the Warhol superstar. He was in The Chelsea Girls. He was the Pope, Ondine.
August: Can you talk about how Warhol got involved?
Ruby: Because when Charles and John split up, John said, "Oh, well, I'll get even with Charles." He got in touch with all of the Warhol superstars, like Taylor Meade, Ultra Violet, Louis Walden, Ondine, Pope Ondine, and he put them in the play to get even with Charles. We were a smash hit. Conquest, it played at the Bowery Lane Theatre, I think for months, I think a few months it played.
August: What did you do for money?
Ruby: I think he paid us enough to live on.
August: Oh, really?
Ruby: Yes. Then when we had the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, CETA, program during Carter's administration, they actually paid us a salary. We worked for the government, so that was not all that wonderful.
August: What did you do? Just act?
Ruby: Yes, we acted. It was a little straight for what we were doing.
August: Wait, so can you explain that program?
Ruby: CETA program paid actors to do Off Broadway productions. They actually paid us. They gave us enough money to live on. He wanted to keep us to where we didn't have to worry about that. My parents were helping me, too. I was lucky.
August: I'm so itchy from all your cat hair.
Ruby: I'm sorry. You were on the floor. That's where all the cat hair is.
August: All the sweat, too, is just like glue.
Ruby: It's sticking to it. I have to eat my dinner, so I have to eat.
August: Yes, two more questions. What did you learn from your time in the Play-House?
Ruby: Oh, my God. It taught me everything. I learned how to think on my feet, how to improvise. It was an invaluable theater. You can't beat having experience on the stage to teach you how to act. You can't beat that. We had real audiences in a real theater with real lines. I remember when the Cockettes came to New York, everybody was like…
The sad part is that we didn't get most of it on video because we didn't have a video camera.
August: No, but from the spirit that we're conveying.
Ruby: Yes, the spirit. Just circus. It's like anything. No holds barred.
August: What do you think I could learn from the—.
Ruby: You've already learned just from knowing me.
August: Well, pretend like I don't. What would you want me to learn from the genre Theatre of the Ridiculous?
Ruby: What do you mean learn?
August: Learn from. It's your big chance. Say something heavy.
Ruby: You know, I don't know. I'd have to think about that one because I've thought about starting a class and teaching people about comic theater and that kind of style of acting because I remember telling this little girl next door, whose mother, she's my neighbor, and she came over and she said, "Listen, I'm having a hard time." She said, "Irena has a part in this play, and she has stage fright." I think it was Irena or her sister. I'm not sure. "She has stage fright, and she has to go on tonight. Could you talk to her?"
I said, "Sure." She came over, and I said, "Listen," I said, "No matter what you do, no matter how you screw up, there's nothing that scares people away from loving you. They are going to love you no matter what you do." That's the way I feel about the theater.
August: There you go. That was heavy. Let me just make sure I don't have any more. I think we're good. I think I pretty much answered everything. Can you just tell the story about John throwing you down the stairs or not?
Ruby: No.