The Fabulousness of Kiki and Herb Sleigh at BAM

I had heard of Kiki and Herb, yet until Thursday night last, I hadn’t experienced the team's cocktails, witticisms, and songs before.

But as we entered BAM Harvey theater, I could tell by the audience’s anticipation that these two alleged 90 something-year-olds were fly and fab. When Herb stepped on the stage, there was great applause; then, when Kiki appeared, there was a standing ovation. This majestic creature with the pendulous boobs and skintight dress bedazzled with baubles and bouffed-out blonde hair? Then Miss Kiki burst into song. Spoofing on notable Christmas tunes like “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” as well as pop favorites like Foreigners, “Feels Like the First Time,” and she had the audience at first bravado and sip of scotch.

They appeared with very deliberate penciled-in age lines grooving all over their fainter furrows, as only two professional night clubby performers from the 1950s might. And we audience members swallowed the anachronism of appearances very willingly with glee. Kiki combines Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, mushed up into Norma Desmond attempting to look like 90-year-old Angie Dickinson. She dishes on everything from the pandemic to Aids to old pals like her felo-de-se friends Ann Sexton and Sylvia Plath. Her imagination and storytelling took us through contorted tunnels of love and laughter as well as…