The Burlesque Hour - She's Back!

Didn't celebrate Valentines Day here.... Never have what with my wedding anniversary the day before...

That said, Saturday was a difficult day. ex-dh remarried on the 9th of January - a full six months after our divorce was finalised and Saturday, was 11 years to the day, that we should have been married.

I cried the day in at about 12:30am Saturday morning, slept, missed several buses, met with a friend in the city, bussed it out to Bel's, talked at length about taking ex-dh to court over access to the kids - why I should and shouldn't do it - and then went home to usher for The Burlesque Hour - She's Back! in the city.

It opened my eyes up WIDE!

Yes, I knew about burlesque and was expecting to see some suggestive strip-teases and had steeled myself JIC there was full frontal nudity - but I wasn't expecting what I got!

The full frontal nudity came in the first 5 minutes of the show. The performer, annoyed that her tights were interfering with her hula-hoop act, stripped right down to get rid of her tights, then dressed again and finished her act.

:eek

But as I thought about it, I asked myself "Why is seeing a naked female body on stage confronting? I've seen them on TV, on the internet, backstage during shows (I even have undressed and dressed an actor in a quick change - right down to bra and undies off so that we could get her into a slinky corset) and I have even seen mum mother naked (although was horrified at the time!). Why is it acceptable for men to take their kit off in The Full Monty for example, but totally unacceptable for women to perform in burlesque?

Could it be that my Christian upbringing is kicking in and telling me "Its not OK to undress on stage because that will make men lust after women - especially married men."

Pfft! "You know what?" I thought. "The female body is a beautiful thing - why else would so many artist have tried to encapsulate it in their work throughout the centuries? Even the ancient Greeks, Romans, Mayans and many others carved naked women (mostly gods) out of stone."

So I sat back and watched the show unfold.

Sexual desire, sexual awakening, the act of sex itself, sexual impropriety featured in each of the burlesque acts, with Toni Lamond singing music hall/vaudville shows in between to put burlesque back into historical perspective and to reinforce that this beautiful theatrical/musical tradition that burlesque had come from (opera - for the masses, Shakespeare - for the masses, Gilbert and Sullivan - for the masses, musical hall - for the masses, vaudeville and then burlesque. Each time the audience shrunk and the masses became less, musical theatre was forced to evolve to a higher plane - to use different tactics to attract patrons back to the theatre - that's how burlesque was born.

The Burlesque Hour takes it another step though - the shock/taboo tactics that earned burlesque a bad name in the first place were so artfully and skillfully applied to this show so that each number shocked and provoked you into challenging your conceptions about this art form, about femininity and sexuality in general.

Then came the strip-tease - something that Gypsy Rose Lee made famous in the 20s and 30s in the US. A woman in a giant gorilla suit, feather boa around her neck and silver tassels on her nipples - performed to Christine Aguilera's "I am Beautiful". The act starts out with this gorilla slinking onto the stage, embarrassed to be there and uncomfortable in its own skin. In the first chorus as Aguilera asserts "I am beautiful, no matter what they say, words can't bring me down", she gains confidence, agrees with the lyrics and starts to wiggle her feather boa a little, by the end of the song, she is swinging her tassels. As the song unfolds, so too does the gorilla suit and the final triumphant chorus is sung as the gorilla mask comes off and a beautiful woman emerges resplendent in a set of gorilla undies and silver tassels.

I sobbed through this piece - my own journey of finding faith in my own body laid bare...

The show continued and after intermission, Toni Lamond sang "The Hungry Years", a song that I had never heard before but again had me in tears. That evening was the evening of my 11th wedding anniversary - and my husband had just remarried 35 days earlier. The song, all about a relationship gone bad, pining for what should have been despite all of the good things that had come about since the relationship collapsed - touched my core, just as the gorilla strip-tease had.

And the show continued - sex and breastfeeding, sexual promiscuity and alcohol, sex and grief/illness/loss/tragedy, sex transcending racial differences - each act touching me, identifying with me or challenging me to my core.

And then, just before the finale was an act performed to Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" about the lengths that we go to, changing our weight, our looks, our personalities, who we are, in desperation to be loved by someone. It opened my eyes in the same way that Grease had 25 years earlier and yet, this act took it one step further - it was performed by a surgically altered transvestite - or was she? As she performed the number entirely naked except for strings of pearls around her neck, she looked as efeminie as any woman I had ever since - in fact she was incredibly beautiful, and yet when she "turned around" she displayed what looked like a man-butt. But was that make-up? I was intrigued. And moved, as for the first time in my life, I was prompted to consider just what men go through when they love another man enough to commit to surgery to please that man - a decision and an expression of love that often goes unrequited - and OH HOW I KNOW THAT JOURNEY! No, I have not been surgically altered to please another but I did agree at 19 to an abortion that I was totally against because my partner had threatened to leave me unless I did so. So in a desperate act to prove my love to him - I went through with the abortion - and he left me 10 days later.

The show is brilliant! It WILL challenge everything that you hold in your heart about sexuality and femininity - be prepared for that.

But my recommendation? GO SEE THE BURLESQUE HOUR!

Its brillliant!