Lamp Back: Plays and Other Grievances

A major collection of performance works by artist and agitator Anthony Hudson

Lamp Back: Plays and Other Grievances collects nearly a decade of work by Anthony Hudson, a queer Indigenous artist and agitator also known as Portland, Oregon's premier drag clown, Carla Rossi. Whether fumbling with a lamp in a satirical takedown of land acknowledgments or confronting the history of redface in pop culture, Hudson alternates between Rossi's cackling "ghost of white privilege" and more earnest, vulnerable confessionals as himself-all with a deep commitment to bitter humor and brutal honesty. In these performance works, a mixed-race Native boy plays a pilgrim in his kindergarten Thanksgiving pageant. A young artist recounts the racism in their favorite musical and the larger American theater system. A drag queen storytime goes disastrously wrong and calls for an exorcism with a plunger. Kate Bredeson's unflinching introduction speaks to Hudson's work through a cultural and historical lens and illuminates the importance of his project to filet the American Empire.