GET READY FOR THE GODDESS : Judy Tenuta, Her Divine Self, Is Coming to the Coach House, Honey

So, Judy, how’s it going visiting the folks back home in Oak Park, Ill.?

“I’m just kind of kicking back and enjoying the big fat slabs of beef Ernest Hemingway left here,” Judy Tenuta answered by phone last week.

Speaking in her trademark Glenda the Good Witch trill--which frequently lapses into a guttural barroom growl--she sounded proud to hail from the same town that spawned not only Hemingway but also architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

“I grew up here as a Petite Flower,” said Tenuta, who plays the Coach House on Saturday night. “I’m highly worshiped here. They’re going to build a building in the shape of my accordion. . . . It could happen.”

And so it goes with the self-proclaimed Love Goddess, Duchess of Discipline, Aphrodite of the Accordion, the Tamer of Trolls and Squidmistress of Studsicles, the divinely appointed founder of her own religion--Judyism--through which her followers “can forget about all their problems by thinking about mine for a change.”

Usually on stage in a diaphanous gown with a flower in her hair, the gaudy Blesser of Bunions--or Deity of Dementia, as one reviewer called her--takes absurdist potshots at contemporary society in a campy act that includes impressions, as the Goddess finds herself “possessed” by everyone from Cher (“When I can’t get my butt reshaped, I choose Equal”) to Roseanne Arnold.

Tenuta majored in theater at the University of Illinois in the ‘70s and supported herself as a singing waitress before briefly studying improvisation at Chicago’s famed Second City comedy cabaret and then making the switch to stand-up divinity.

Did she she have any influences?

“Of course! Imelda Marcos and Mother Teresa: Great shoes and a hundred and one ways to use a towel.”

So, Judy, is the Queen of Candypants spending any time at the mall during her visit to Oak Park?

“Oh, I love going to the mall, honey. I went to the Mall of America in Minneapolis, the biggest mall in the world. They have too many worldly possessions, honey, which should be given to the Goddess for their own good.”

But her time just hasn’t been her own.

“I’m so busy when I come home. So many of my followers line up so they can have me spit down upon them.”

On stage, the Goddess has been known to pick out a male subject in the front row and anoint him by hocking her gum at him. Then she will command him to pick up the moist missile and swallow it. Invariably the appointed Love Hog does as commanded.

Our conversation was interrupted by the click of Tenuta’s call waiting. “Oh, hold on,” she said. “There’s Elvis. Can you hold?

“I’m so sorry, that was Elvis,” she apologized a minute later. “Oh, he is just so jealous of anyone I talk to.”

So, Judy, what do you think of Hillary Clinton?

“Oh, Hillary! You know she is the President, honey. Bill’s wearing a saddle right now. Why do you think he’s a Rhodes scholar? Because he has Hillary riding him. . . .

“I love the political scene, honey. The Goddess must be aware at all times to protect her Love Donkeys and Petite Virgins.”

Does she miss George Bush?

“I miss Ba-a-a-bs! You know, she looked like the Quaker Oats man on speed. I just loved it.”

Given the demands that being Love Goddess must entail, does she ever get tired of it all?

“Well, sometimes I kick back. I can travel incognito. But somehow I get recognized. Maybe it’s the big old accordion.”