Alec Mapa: SF native brings his stand-up storytelling to Oasis

At some point while Alec Mapa is in town, he’ll make his way up to the top of Twin Peaks. The San Francisco native actor-comedian, who brings his new show “Ha! Penis!” to Oasis on August 8, has been making the local pilgrimage since his teen years growing up in the West Portal neighborhood.

 “Looking out and seeing the whole city, all the lights of downtown to the Golden Gate and the Bay, still takes my breath away. San Francisco is an absolute knockout,” said Mapa, 60, perhaps best known for playing gossip monger Suzuki St. Pierre on television’s “Ugly Betty.”      
“It’s a place where I can feel an appreciation for all the opportunities and experiences I’ve had and also take a breath and get a perspective on life,” Mapa said during a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter from his home in Los Angeles.

The past few years have been a time of major new perspective-taking for Mapa. In the wake of the pandemic, he booked an international stand-up tour; in the midst of it, he was diagnosed with cancer.

Self-care
If news of Mapa’s health crisis (now fully resolved) comes as a surprise to fans of his flamboyant performances on “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” last year’s “Frasier” reboot, and, once upon a time, the Jonas Brothers’ Disney TV series, that’s just how Mapa wanted it.

“In 2021, after my diagnosis, I just kept touring without ever telling anyone outside of my family. My doctors told me I didn’t have to have the surgery right away, so I got up there night after night and joked about dicks and farts and hook-up culture.”

Without ever saying a word, Mapa plowed on, in part out of necessity.

“Of course, I had to make a living,” he recalled (Mapa and his husband of 23 years, Jamie Hebert, have an adopted son, Zion, now 20). “But keeping my commitment to do all of those shows was also a blessing, because it gave me something to focus on and put my energy into instead of just having an existential crisis over my mortality. Making people laugh feels good. It’s doing a service.”

A service not just to audiences, but also to himself. Noted Mapa, “Laughter is medicine.”

Live to tell
Having come through major surgery and been cleared as cancer-free, Mapa, who a decade ago had a hit Showtime special, “Baby Daddy,” which chronicled his and Hebert’s fostering and adoption of Zion, realized he had a new prescription to offer audiences.

“Ha! Penis!” is his absurdist, grotesquely funny, and ultimately uplifting take on his recent personal history (The show’s title points to the particular cancer Mapa fended with).

“Please don’t worry that it will be a downer,” Maps urged prospective audiences. “This is the kind of show where I fart on my doctor’s finger.”

Gay fans around Mapa’s age will both laugh and take comfort in his no-holds-barred account of triumph over incontinence, erectile dysfunction, and the sprawling monstrosity that is the American healthcare system.

While “Ha! Penis!” debuted in New York and has played in Provincetown, Mapa is excited to be bringing the show to San Francisco, where he graduated from George Washington High after starring in school productions of “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Cabaret” before heading to NYU for college. At 19, Mapa got his New York break when he was cast as the understudy and eventual replacement for B.D. Wong in the Broadway production of “M Butterfly.”

“The audiences in San Francisco are always so tuned in to the gay and Asian aspects of my material. There’s a lot of common ground to build on,” said Mapa. “Our community is under attack and feeling vulnerable. Getting together and laughing our heads off is how we reclaim our power. Queer joy is like a blade of grass busting layers of concrete; unstoppable.”

That’s a healthy attitude, to be sure.

Alec Mapa’s ‘Ha! Penis!,’ with Calpernia Addams opening. $30-$40, July 8, 7pm at Oasis, 298 11th St. http://www.sfoasis.com
http://alecmapa.com/