Jackie Beat is one of those performers, writers, know-it-alls who should be more famous than she is. “Her” (she’s not a real lady) talent is a testament to the cruelty of Hollywood, a flawed system which rewards dumb and empty vessels like Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt merely for existing, and allows bad scripts (nearly everything currently playing at your local cinema) to be made into movies for millions of dollars. When my friend and I walked out of “Whatever Happened to Busty Jane,” a dark-and-twisted comic send up of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, we had just finished laughing nonstop for two hours. I said to my friend, "Wouldn’t it be nice if Jackie Beat was writing Saturday Night Live skits?” Sadly, we both agreed that it would probably never happen because she’s too good, too smart, and too funny for mainstream America.

Thankfully I don’t live in mainstream America, and in my fringey world I can see Jackie Beat all the time -- and she’s the real star, not effing iCarly. I first met Jackie through promoter Mario Diaz in New York in 1998. She was just as funny and sharp-tongued then as she is now and would frequent clubs like the Cock, where she made Justin Bond’s alcoholic alter ego, Kiki, seem like a choir girl. Since then, I went to nearly every Christmas show she put on; I sat with Parker Posey at one of them and watched the actress laugh hysterically throughout Jackie’s black comedy holiday hour.

Only Ms. Beat could come up with the twisted scenario of "Whatever Happened to Busty Jane?": two failed ex-porn stars (a brother and sister team, Busty Jane and Branch Hardon) live in their West Hollywood condo, where a jealous, cracked out Busty Jane keeps her wheelchair-bound brother (suffering from “the AIDS”) captive. With the help of other improv comedy geniuses (including director Drew Dreoge and Groundlings and Upright Citizens Brigade alumni Sam Pancake and Nadya Ginsburg), Jackie and Mario deliver two hours of curse-filled, double entendre-laden, politically incorrect dialogue. Note to the humorless chick sitting in front of us whining about everything, from the buzzer to the Mexican jokes to the assertion that Will and Grace is not funny, please look up "irony," "satire," and "parody" in the dictionary.

Done on a shoestring budget, there is exactly one set. It's frozen in the 80s, when Branch was last famous as a power bottom. (The story goes that he lost the use of his legs because of one too many power sessions.) So whenever there’s a need for a scene change, Jackie uses dialogue cues that are really obvious and meta, as in: “Here we are ... at the BEACH.” There’s a running gag about the maid’s ethnicity (mispronunciations of her name run the gamut from "Chlamydia" to "Contraction"), and everyone insists she’s just a Mexican against her “I’m really Puerto Rican!” protests. There’s another scene indulging in politically incorrect banter -- an extended, purposefully awkward segment poking fun at "little people," featuring Selene Luna, herself a little person.

The play smartly uses music and sound as cues to amplify the comedy; there’s a funny gag featuring Missing Person’s “Nobody Walks in L.A.,” but we’ll let you see it for yourselves. And you should really, really see it. While everyone is stellar and memorable, no one is able to do as much with their face as Ms. Beat. Expertly made up to look old and wasted out of her mind (bloodshot eyes, deep-set crows feet), Jackie gives good slapstick -- a frozen smile, a grimace, and a perfectly timed line go a long way. The sight gag alone of Jackie coming out onto the stage for the first time -- triple-F boobs hanging mid-waist -- was enough to send the audience into fits of laughter. But again, you should just really really see it for yourself.

Fridays & Saturdays @ 9pm, Sundays @ 8pm. Cavern Club Celebrity Theater, 1920 Hyperion Avenue.

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