Reading the room Monday night at Oasis, you wouldn’t know it was a sad occasion. The crowd at the beloved San Francisco drag bar leaned heavily toward drag queens, lesbians, and leather daddies, many exchanging hugs and kisses.
They were in SF’s flagship drag venue to celebrate the one friend who couldn’t be there, drag superstar Heklina, whose face was everywhere from the mural outside to the video footage shown during the tribute show. The notoriously raunchy performer co-founded Oasis with colleague D’Arcy Drollinger at the end of 2014. Heklina died in London in 2023, leaving behind many unanswered questions and countless loved ones. Even as speculation and rumors have run rampant in the two years since she passed, this night was about celebrating Heklina’s legacy while raising funds to digitize decades’ worth of her recorded performances.
Another dark cloud hung above Oasis. On Monday morning, Drollinger sent out an official press release stating that Oasis would cease venue operations by year’s end, a major hit to the city’s drag community and everyone who loves it. Citing rising costs and audience numbers that never returned to pre-pandemic levels, Drollinger had been paying out of her nest egg just to keep the venue afloat. It was quite the whiplash from recent Oasis headlines for the parody show Jurassiq Parq (“the show of the summer,” per the Chronicle).
One person definitely caught off-guard was Joshua Grannell, better known as Peaches Christ, who’d planned the tribute show to his late friend last month and hosted in full Heklina accoutrement.
“D'arcy texted me in the morning before I read it in the press,” Grannell told me the morning after the show. “It hit like a gut-punch. I think a lot of us in the community suspected things weren’t easy, because nothing is these days, but the official news still felt like a surprise. It added a heavy layer to what was already an emotional night.”
It’s been particularly emotional for Grannell, whose dogged push for answers led authorities to reexamine the circumstances surrounding Heklina’s death. Although he can’t share any of the updates he and Nancy French, Heklina’s legal next of kin, have received from London detectives, he’s hopeful that some questions may finally have answers.
“I don’t think any of us have had real closure, and maybe we never fully will,” he says. “But what’s been healing is the way our community has come together to honor her and keep her legacy alive.”
That legacy shown through in the scenes projected on the stage for the show. Most were from T-shack (renamed Mother in 2015), the annual drag contest Heklina created at the original Stud, before bringing it to the DNA Lounge, and finally, Oasis. Although the show frequently drew celebrities like Lady Gaga and RuPaul, it was the local talent that made it special. Last night’s tribute featured performances from such mainstays that included Fauxnique and Cricket Bardot.
Chris Steele, who frequently performs as Polly Amber Ross and produced Oasis’ horror parody Dragcula this past January, said that what’s needed to save spaces like Oasis is for City Hall to fund local, independent art rather than spend so much time and money wooing corporate interests.
“Audiences are eager for art where they feel welcome and seen,” Steele said. “It’s so hard to run anything of [Oasis’] scale with such a small, potent team. I’m just so grateful for all the work they’ve done to make dreams a reality for so many people. But I think it’s really up to the city now to finally, actually, hold themselves to account for whether or not we’re going to support the arts in this city.”
Grannell agrees. Although he’d love to perform in treasured spaces like the Castro Theatre where he and Heklina used to perform, he insists that the art of drag is more about the people and less about the place. He sees his late friend and colleague’s legacy as proof of that.
“Heklina’s spirit is in the walls of Oasis,” Grannell told me. “She and D'arcy built something incredible there. Heklina created a platform that gave a voice to countless weirdos, misfits, and artists who would never have fit into a more mainstream scene. Her legacy is one of fearless inclusivity, punk-rock defiance, and biting humor. She made room for others to shine and that light isn’t going out anytime soon. Truly, if it weren't for trail-blazers like Heklina, the current popularity of drag wouldn't exist.”
Next to the main bar of Oasis is a portrait of its late co-founder, made of miscellaneous tchotchkes. This is where I asked Cricket Bardot what the show’s namesake would have thought of the festivities.
“She loved being in the spotlight,” Bardot said. “She would have eaten this up.”
