The Bearded Ladies present 'You Can Never Go Down the Drain'

Mr. Rogers, unzipped​

Near the top of the show, Jarboe declares his intention to “break up with irony.” For a drag queen working in that most ironic of art forms, this sounds like a career killer. But Jarboe has noble intentions: he hopes his personal transformation will engender greater empathy in the world. By becoming a better, purer person, he hopes he can influence others to follow suit.

With the aid of costume designer Rebecca Kanach, Jarboe styles himself as a genderqueer Mx. Rogers, to use the popular neutral prefix. His version of Mr. Rogers’s iconic zippered cardigan comes bedazzled with pink sequins; his sneakers have spike heels. Jarboe’s physical presentation as Mx. Rogers nods to the traditional while simultaneously subverting it, a hallmark of all good drag.

Yet the show — which Jarboe co-wrote with Suli Holum, who also directs — quickly goes off the rails. Despite his stated desire to leave satire in the dust, Jarboe cannot help but perform with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Tiny bells supplied to the audience to signal slips into sarcasm rang all night, with good reason.

Sincerely salty​

It’s not just that the sexualization of Mr. Rogers’s classic tunes can seem, at the risk of sounding prudish, unsavory. (I don’t recall old Fred singing much about face-sitting or piss play.) Jarboe and Holum likely could have found ways to marry the drag aesthetic to their sincere goal more serendipitously. But as it stands, when Jarboe goes into full drag mode — straddling audience members, licking frosting off knee-high boots, surfing across the crowd in mock carnal conquest — the show’s overarching message seems lost.

The show also nods to the Bearded Ladies’ environmental commitment, as evidenced in their 2016 Bitter Homes and Gardens. Mx. Rogers intermittently references the Pacific Trash Vortex under the pretense of a lesson about recycling. This bit initially has the right tone of educational entertainment we expect from a children’s show, but it’s quickly set aside. So it makes little sense when it returns as a centerpiece of the finale, and its connection to radical earnesty remains dubious.

The germ of a good idea stays present throughout the evening. Jarboe possesses a beautiful singing voice — pure and effortless, with no vibrato — and can be an utterly winning stage performer. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he’s at his best when he gives himself over to his concept. An unadorned, unironic rendition of Fred Rogers’s “It’s You I Like,” accompanied with lovely simplicity by longtime Bearded Ladies music director Heath Allen, grabs at the heart.

But few other moments truly stick the landing. Unlike Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, the beautifully realized documentary about Mr. Rogers currently playing in cinemas nationwide, You Can Never Go Down the Drain fails to fully explore the importance of being earnest.