In
Die Mommie Die!, now at New World Stages, fading chanteuse Angela Arden (Charles Busch) returns from her husband's funeral wearing a wide-brimmed black hat and chic black coat of the sort Jackie Kennedy might have selected for a solemn occasion. Away from the public's searching eye and surrounded only by her viper's-nest family and friends, Angela opens the coat in a flamboyant leading-lady gesture to reveal a black-and-white lining and matching dress Cruella de Vil would choose if she had a sense of humor.

It's the visual high point of yet another look-back-and-laugh item in which Busch frames his drag self to shimmer as a latter-day Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Susan Hayward or Ida [...]