Everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask about male to female transitioning. Well, not quite, but Family Jewels: the Making of Veronica Klaus is certainly the most entertaining of musicals about the subject. Klaus is a jewel herself, showcased on the Theatre Rhino stage in all her glory… and pain… and joy… and sweet self-degradation. Klaus is unabashedly unafraid of showing the seedy as well as the vulnerable side of her life story, from his humble and scary beginnings in a small town to her outrageous and glorious growth in the big city. Right off the bat you will realize that not only is Klaus an accomplished singer (named Best Chanteuse by the SF Bay Guardian) but also a performance icon. And as it says on her postcards, she is the REAL Transamerica. Written by Klaus and Jeffrey Hartgraves, and directed for Theatre Rhino production by John Fisher, this one-woman show is a fascinating tour de force of all things Klaus. Kudos to set and light designer Topher Busenberg for perfectly and prominently displaying this production. The stage is a private view of her bedroom, where practically every item on the wall, every piece of furniture, and every costume has its place in revealing all the facets of this jewel. Right down to the book placed on her vanity, Without Remorse by Tom Clancy.

The show begins in the dark with a tape sounding off audible playbills about all the venues she has performed in. Then out she bursts, blasting out her queer-oriented rendition of “Fever” and getting the audience feverishly worked up. “Have you ever been this close to someone so famous?” she queries a poor unsuspecting audience member. “Well, I am famous in that this may be a small pond, but you have to admit I’m a big fish!” She adds with a smirk, “I’m famous enough to have a reputation that threatens to become a career.” Pulling from her bodice a wrinkled and yellowed uncomplimentary press clipping, she cringes to a review about her as “a one-breasted drag queen with arms like a linebacker.” She calls herself a creation, “my own personal arts and science project,” and proceeds to give “the highlights and the lowdown.” She stutters in her difficult attempt to come out to us: “I was…um …I am… um… I’m a t-… I am a t-t-t-tuba player!” This shocking revelation will become much clearer to us later on.

We learn through clever monologue and witty wordplay of her roots as a husky boy in Gillespie, Illinois who just never fit in except with the misfits. She begins to reveal her whole story, or as she cunningly utilizes the homo homophone, hole story. She resents labels because “we’re all unique; even the bland people.” She notes that what makes a diamond is time and a whole lot of pressure, and then sings her signature song that she composed, “Black Diamond Days.” It’s all about the Gillespie experience summed up in the annual Festival of Coal and her escape, never to return, because “you can’t go back to a church that burned down a lifetime ago.” The tagline is quite telling: “You just can’t force this jewel of a girl into a square setting.” The song insists, “See her shine,” which could very well be the title of this review of that revue.

There is a running gag when periodically a voiceover will portray people from her past while something on the wall suddenly lights up in vivid illustration. My favorite has to be the backlit, suffering Jesus with changing colors to illustrate her days attending a Methodist church. This was the perfect sanctuary for her to experiment with her sexuality and dye a white corset, which she rescued from the church rummage sale and secretly dyed black in the church’s chili pot, in order to be an appropriate audience member of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Her ministry as an evangelical was as a “big-boned girly boy” in the God Squad, doing puppet shows about salvation. Yes, you will see the thing itself! Learn how the Holy Spirit snubbed her as she brilliantly interprets Nina Simone’s “Tomorrow Is My Turn.” And then there’s the Bette Midler album cover on the wall—her inspiration and patron saint, who saved her from boredom in her bedroom and sang her to sleep each night on the old phonograph. This lights up as Klaus croons “Long Ago and Oh So Far Away.” Another running gag is the occasional bright light and finger cymbal to portray the proverbial light bulb moment and share something we need to know. Sometimes it’s life-changing info and other times it’s just a surprising yet silly disclosure. We become Pavlov’s dog salivating at the sound of a bell. We really are putty in this crafty performer’s hands. And we love it!

Her mother, she divulges, was not a Stepford wife, and split the scene for 15 years, leaving this poor young boy to be raised by siblings and a father who meant well. She laments, “No matter how much you love someone, you can’t always take them along in your journey.”

She only sits down once at an old-fashioned, many-mirrored upright piano to plunk out and sing a woeful tune. The rest of her songs are accompanied via tape. And that’s just the first act. After intermission she will take you through the lewd, rude, and crude (not to mention gorier) aspects of her transformation. “Think outside the box,” she puns lasciviously. And as she points out so succinctly, “This ain’t Cats, folks!” The costumes change one after another—as do the songs, as does the mood. Strap yourself in and prepare for a real rollercoaster ride! Family Jewels runs through April 1 at Theatre Rhinoceros Wed.-Sat. at 8pm and Sun. matinees at 3pm.