In Search of the Perfect Wig

Martha Graham-Cracker

So when you get to the 1200 block of Chestnut (a.k.a. “Wig Street Philadelphia”), you’re home, at least my kind of home. As a drag queen, you always gotta keep things interesting. Like Madonna, you must constantly reinvent yourself. Like Magellan, you must not be afraid to sail around Cape Horn and discover the as-yet unknown. Like Magnum P.I., your chest must remain hairy. But what can you change, you ask? (Insert the “Serenity Prayer” here.) That’s right, you can change the other hair, the hair atop your ever-loving head.

Let me get you oriented. On one side of 12th and Chestnut Street there is an enormous warehouse called House of Beauty, a kind of emporium with many aisles and (at first glance) only a small counter in the center of the store with wigs. But don’t be fooled. Sure, you can stop and inquire about those wigs if you want, but that’s not where the real beauty bounty lies. You must forage deeper into the store, all the way back past the hair gels, weaves and mousse to the right rear. It’s there that you will be confronted with the giant wall of wigs – with sexy names for each glam style.

There’s the Janice, the Rhonda and the Stephanie. Who do you want to be today? May I be Patricia? Or Susan? What about Evelyn? If you are lucky, as I have been, a patient woman from Trinidad will help you find the perfect head piece. She will endlessly lower these gorgeous specimens of hair with a giant red hook…after selling you a wig cap, of course. And she will allow you to try on as many styles as you want.

Once you have found your favorite fake hair, you stand in line in the front of the store to check out, where vaguely Eastern European ladies preen and happily swipe your credit card.

But wait, what’s that across the street? Why it’s Claire’s Wigs. The place seems smaller, more humble and more limited, but again, do not be fooled. A woman with magical powers works here.

I don’t know her name (I don’t actually think it’s Claire). I don’t even know if she likes me. That’s not her job. Her job is to wig. And that is just what she does.

When I arrived, still clutching my wig cap from House of Beauty, I knew I had yet to find my “find.” I hadn’t found “it,” “the” wig. Not yet. So like some story in the Bible (or a Hollywood adaptation from the 1950s of a Bible story) I threw myself on bended knee and kissed the hem of her gown, placing my head’s future in this tiny woman’s hands, hands that have seen much in the way of synthetic hair, hands that have, I should note, been doing this since the 70s.

Our Lady of Wigs, as I like to call her, holds my face beatifically and says, gently, but firmly, “Hold you hands around your face, block out your hair for me.”

This was followed by a lot of hmm-ing and then, suddenly, an “aha,” at which point she spun around and pointed her fateful finger to the far corner of the store. “That one!”

And let me tell you – she did it. She found “the one.” It was a slam dunk of follicle glory, a Houdini-like act of hair magic, a calling up of a coiffure so right, so on, so oddly perfect, that it still remains my favorite wig (and I have quite a few). But this wig, kind of curly in a Clara Bow bob, is a luscious blend of blonde and honey. It bounces giddily with the right combination of sass and sophistication. I am wearing it, in fact, in the picture you see here.

If you go to Claire’s Wigs don’t tell her Martha Graham Cracker sent you. Just play it cool. Maybe start trying to guess aloud the wig that’s for you, then shake your head in utter confusion. Sigh. Talk to a friend loudly about not knowing which wig is right in three guesses (three, you see, is the maximum number of tries allowable at Claire’s). But if she’s in the right mood, and if you hold your wig cap in just the right, most forlorn way, maybe she, too, will take a good long look at your long face and happily steer you home.

Martha Graham-Cracker is a drag personality played by Dito Van Reigersberg, co-artistic director of Pig Iron Theatre Company in Philadelphia.