Rose Wood: Furniture Maven and Underground Cabaret Star

Ouch! Kids, Don't Try This at Home. Photo by Bob Schaffer

Bad Girl! Sister Frederick spanks Mama Lou. Photo by Bob Schaffer

Photo by Bob Schaffer

I should preface this piece by saying that though I use the pronoun "he" to refer to Rose, I do this because there really isn't an appropriate pronoun to describe what Rose is. As he points out,he does not identify as either a "man" or a "woman," and there is no word to represent that state, except inelegant constructions like "he/she." Feminism brought us "Ms." - let's see what the trans-gendered community can come up with.

It’s a good bet that people in their 50’s, a time of life of unpleasant metabolic changes, the steady collapse of the physical self, and the start of the slow downhill ride to the grave don’t imagine that they’ll end up starring in a late night nightclub, doing things that would shame G.G.Allin and, in fact, shock Marilyn Manson (this is true, Manson was apparently stunned by Rose’s tranny act), but Rose Wood is such a person.

Rose, whose day job involves furniture restoration and building, and is an absolute master of his craft, is also a drag queen who recently got implants (though he doesn’t plan to fully transition, so rather than a chick with dick, I guess he’s a man with mammaries, or a toff with tits). He also performs nightly at the infamous Box, doing acts that alternately fascinate and horrify. As a burlesque performer, Rose gained notoriety with his tranny hooker act, that ends with the insertion of a bottle up his anus.

First done as a trick, Rose decided to do it for real, and has escalated. He has thrown shit on audiences, pissed on them, vomited on them, and pretending to be a junkie, shot up in his dick, and recently, he caused the audience to vomit when he inserted a toilet brush up his tush. The shit and piss were faked, but the anal insertions are all too real.

Recently, I spoke with Rose about how all this came to be. Rose is 52 years old, lives in Manhattan, but was raised in New Jersey. He moved to the city in the 1975, to attend NYU. He makes his home at the Chelsea Hotel, and also has his furniture workshop a few blocks away, where he also keeps his costumes and make up kit. Rose calls what he does “cabaret for adults,” and likes his material to play with gender roles and sexual identities, something he illustrates in his own body, as he recently acquired a large set of breast implants.

He feels age has given him insight that younger performers might not have awareness of, despite being perhaps more physically agile. This is not to say his acts are message oriented. As Rose says, “Young people don’t need to hear when I was your age we had to walk to school, or wrote on blackboards, but if you can put what you want to say in a form that is entertaining and fun to watch, you can make a bigger impact on them.” Because what he does is adult physical comedy, akin to Laurel & Hardy (if they ever did s/m skits) or Charlie Chaplin (the Little Tramp hooked on the side), Rose stays fit by moderating his diet (he is pretty fit and extremely thin), and has been celibate for years.

He considers his age a positive attribute, and has decided that a comical personae works well for his acts. He regards his appeal as similar to that of stilt walkers, clowns, midgets, and the like. Rose feels he has found his performative side at a later time of life than most performers. He feels that delusions about looks and what he does, are hopefully fewer as you age, so you can get to where you want to be onstage quickly, and with a minimum of fuss. Clubs are a place where the audience’s defenses are down, and they are not expecting any profound thoughts, so Rose feels if you can cut through the alcohol and drug haze of the crowd you can say meaty things, which he loves about late night performances.

One thing that has shaped Rose’s theatrical view is that he ran an AIDS organization for 18 years, dealing with deep issues and conflicts, and this has informed what he feels is important in his acts. He says “With age comes freedom from worrying about sex appeal and physical perfection, and that having implants frees me from being on either side of the gender binary: not just male and female, but also straight or gay. If you find me sexy, are you gay, straight, or am I closer to an androgynous ideal, beyond such distinctions?” Rose doesn’t feel the need to fully transition at the moment, and feels as a celibate, he is “neither male or female, but a bit of both.”

Rose got started at the Box, because burlesque performers he knew were complaining that the owners of the Box didn’t treat them with the respect they felt they deserved, but they would tell Rose, “Now you, you’re just what they are looking for.” So Rose went for an audition, doing his signature tranny hooker shoves bottle up his ass, and the director Simon Hammerstein immediately asked Rose, “Can you pull a string of Christmas lights out of your ass?” to which Rose replied, “I’m Jewish. Before the Christmas lights, I have to dislodge the menorah.” He laughed, and asked, “Where do you hide the battery pack?”

Rose feels Simon is a brilliant man who has insight way beyond his years, and has a wonderful working relationship with the club. Rose also appreciates that Simon has a vision for the club, based on his experiences directing theater, when few of his friends would spare an hour or so to see a play, but would gladly hang out five hours in a club, so he decided to bring theater to the club, where they would see the whole thing. Rose appreciates that the whole approach his geared towards adults, and is not child friendly fare. Rose feels the contemporary timing, the high quality of the presentation, makes it a joy to perform there.

The shows are hosted by long time drag performer Raven O. Raven helps focus the crowd, which tends to be a bit ADD, as they come to be seen more than to see, by running caustic commentary through the performances, and he can be so brilliant and amusing, it has caused Rose to break character a few times.

As if this isn’t enough, Rose has a furniture business, restoring and building furniture for the past 23 years. Working with furniture give Rose great pleasure, of a different sort than performance, but he feels there are similarities to drag: you watch a transformation. When people ask Rose “How can you do drag and restore furniture?,” he replies that both involve painting old things.

He likes how you can reinvent and restore old objects to bring their original spirit and give them new luster, making old things more contemporary. Rose feels he is also honoring the original designers of the pieces he works on, and that he feels they would be pleased to see their work continue on. It’s also an opportunity to train others in the craft, and employees often go on to start their own businesses.

Although Rose feels you will never become rich doing this (“The two words you never hear together are ‘wealthy’ and ‘craftsperson’.”) Despite this, there’s always a need for furniture, even in this cyber world we often inhabit. You still need to cut a board, clean a table, have a chair. Also, everything wears out, so it is possible for a table at a 100 years to have a new life, as it is for a person at 50.

Rose also follows a Guru, which he has down for 24 years, and his place in Chelsea doubles as a meditation center. He finds it ironic that his reputation is someone who is extreme and weird, and that he gets praised for this willingness to do extreme acts, but that once you bring up anything that even has a whiff of religion, the same people back off. Rose has not that slightest interest in proselytizing for his beliefs, he is just grateful for the wisdom he has earned from his beliefs and friendship with his guru/mentor.

He also hope that his acts help people gain some freedom with their own bodies, and Rose regards the human body has a great playground for humor, with all the funny bits dangling and things hanging out. He thinks people are often confused by his humorous non-sexual or asexual approach to body parts that most consider sexual.

Another irony is that far from the extreme crazy Rose plays on stage, offstage he is thoughtful, soft spoken, and warm, although considering he has started to do acts that channel serial killers and horror, perhaps it’s best to remember it’s always the quiet ones…..

If you’re curious to see Rose Wood perform, the Box is located in the East Village, and Rose often performs at the Slipper Room, the Bowery Poetry Club (as part of Bad Ass Burlesque), and a few other venues. He is well worth your time.