Taking a step out from behind the camera, Hairspray director and writer John Waters performed his one-man comedy show for about 500 audience members last night at the Boston University Tsai Performance Center.
In a show full of audience interaction and some stand-up, Waters’s This Filthy World was up to par with his past productions, which include Serial Mom and Polyester, audience members said.
“I’ve had a great career, a good life,” Waters said during his performance. “This filthy world’s a beautiful place.”
“I love the combination of a very real world [in Waters’s work] . . . combined with tremendous artificiality,” said William Pierce, editor of BU literary magazine Agni, after the performance. “It’s great that somebody like this could be brought to Boston.”
Waters offered advice on how to break into the film industry, recalling how some of his first films had a $5,000 budget, which he said at the time seemed like “a lot of money.”
School of Management marketing chairman Patrick Kaufmann said Waters’s unique directing style includes handing out scratch-and-sniff cards during Polyester. Each card had a number, and when the number appeared on screen, audience members smelled the card, resembling the actions in certain scenes.
“[Waters’s work] is over the top, disgusting, crude,” said Graduate School of Management student Scott Condit. “[But] typical, boring, little Hollywood stuff doesn’t appeal to me.”
The audience, comprised of mostly graduate students and professors, applauded when Waters took the stage and was kept laughing throughout the evening.
“I was downright giddy,” said Graduate School of Arts and Sciences student Katherine Erwin. “I watched Hairspray all the time when I was a little kid.”
College of Communication graduate student Laura Ivins-Hulley said the show could have been better only if Divine, a character in many of Waters’s productions, was at the performance.
Waters had been lifelong friends with Divine, a film and theater actor in New York City who was born Harris Glenn Milstead, until he died in 1993.
“[Waters was] hilarious,” said COM graduate student Meghan Barnett. “He hasn’t aged — a timeless guy.”
After performing, Waters answered audience questions and signed books.