Sal Iacopelli still remembers the moving mound of food.
“We were at a leather fundraising party at this guy’s house,” he says. “My master” — Iacopelli then was the in-bondage half of a slave/master relationship — “of course had to walk into the party first. Then he introduced me to everybody as his boy.”
This was all par for the pair: Their sadomasochistic arrangement was highly theatrical and completely consensual. Iacopelli had to open doors for his partner, ask his permission to leave the table and even had to feed him sometimes. Around his neck, Iacopelli wore a dog collar to which only his master had a key.
“After we got to the party, I had to go into the living room to fix him a plate of food, and there was this huge, beautiful mound of food,” says Iacopelli.
He dutifully fixed his master a heaping plate of goodies and took it to him. “I found him talking to another master, whose boy was on his knees feeding him. Then my master said, `Now, that’s servitude.’ And I said, `No, that’s over the top.’ “
Which prompted Iacopelli’s master to send him back for seconds.
“That’s when I noticed the mound of food started to move,” he says. “I mean, it had feet. I realized the food was a guy and he had been mummified, wrapped in Saran Wrap. By party’s end, he was exposed, just a naked boy. You know, I ended up talking to him for a while because, really, it was hard for me to eat cheese cubes off someone without saying hello.”
That little story, and many like it, make up “Masochistic Tango,” Iacopelli’s one-person show about life in San Francisco’s leather community — a funny, sexually frank, often poignant piece that makes its world premiere this weekend during the Blue Rider Theatre’s continuing Sexfest.
The piece is based on weekly letters that Iacopelli wrote Tim Fiori, Blue Rider’s artistic director. Fiori is directing “Masochistic Tango,” which he helped Iacopelli adapt for the stage.
For Fiori and Iacopelli, working together was deja vu: Back in 1985, the two pals founded the Blue Rider with Donna Blue Lachman. Iacopelli, a Chicago native, performed for two years as the leatherman in “Party” before it moved to New York. That’s when he decided he needed a change of address. So he trekked out to San Francisco in 1995, where he almost died from AIDS-related complications and started writing to Fiori.
“I’d get these letters in the mail, and I was laughing so hard,” Fiori says. “They weren’t just funny but insightful. They had all these subplots running through them: life in San Francisco, living with AIDS, this crazy S&M scene, anonymous sex club scenes.”
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For all that, though, “Masochistic Tango” features no nudity, no simulated sex, no whipping or bondage.
“I kind of look at S&M as a metaphor for how people relate, especially since it’s not my cup of tea,” says Fiori. “My job here is to translate S&M so anybody can understand it, so it’s an explanation of power dynamics in a relationship.”
The play charts Iacopelli’s first two years or so in San Francisco, and traces his master/slave relationship from the beginning to the end. It also discusses living with AIDS, which has been made considerably more bearable by the new protease inhibitors called “drug cocktails.”
“I’m in a new relationship now,” says Iacopelli, who’s robust and boyishly handsome. “We’re just two guys; there’s none of this S&M stuff. I think this is something I’m drawn to now, to this very sweet, loving, nourishing relationship. I might play some S&M games once in a while but I won’t ever return to it as intensely. I don’t regret I did it, though, it was an incredible journey.”
You’d think we’d get it: Remember when The Blue Note in West Town was forced to change its name to The Note after it was sued by New York’s original Blue Note?
Well, the Blue Note in Palatine just learned this lesson, too. As of Wednesday, it’s now called Beale Street Blues Cafe — a change caused after a federal lawsuit filed by the owners of the New York club.
The Palatine club will celebrate the name change with a two-day party this weekend. Friday night, it’s the Scott Holman Trio’s smooth jazz, followed by blues man Jimmy Johnson. Saturday, Holman opens up again, followed by Taylor Barton, then G.E. Smith, former “Saturday Night Live” bandleader, who will headline.
the facts
Friday, 4 p.m., Scott Holman Trio, 9:30 p.m., Jimmy Johnson; Saturday, 6 p.m., Scott Holman Trio, Taylor Barton, 9:30 p.m., G.E. Smith, Beale Street Blues Cafe, 1550 N. Rand Rd., Palatine. Call 847-776-9850. Beale Street Blues Cafe is wheelchair accessible.
Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m., “Masochistic Tango” by Sal Iacopelli, Blue Rider Theater, 1822 S. Halsted. Call 312-733-4668. Blue Rider is wheelchair accessible.