Left – Lady DeVine. Photo – Rob StuddertWith raucous patrons braving the sweltering February heat and tight quarters above the B.E.D. (Beats Eats Drinks) pub, “intimate” would certainly be one way to describe this hilariously in-your-face showcase of Australian neo-burlesque. Presented not so much on a stage as using the transverse of a small bar room with booth seating, this is about as up close and personal as you’ll ever want to get to such an array of sequins, feathers, g-strings and malfunctioning pasties in a theatrical setting.
After a somewhat random yet nonetheless rousing support act by solo guitarist Igor Shmaryan singing a short set of Russian ballads to get the crowd warmed up, the evening got rolling with the introduction of our MC, Bullseye Billy. In the image of a dapper gent with a pencil-thin (and pencilled-on) moustache and greasepaint, wearing a rotating variety of outrageously natty suits, Billy’s wearily cynical persona spiced things up. Employing a few simple yet genuinely painful-looking stage magician tricks, he kept things humming along between acts while archly downplaying his “hype man” role in introducing the ladies we had all come to see.
Like much of neo-burlesque, this gig showcases a variety of tonal approaches to the art of the tease and the abundant showwomanship required to make such events humorous and ribald, as well as glamorous and sexy. The sets range from a couple skirting the edges of the more traditionally eroticised old-timey burlesque numbers, to a majority that embrace some layers of irony to the whole affair through intentionally silly costumes, gags and winkingly arch performance flourishes, all the way through to the overtly grotesque or subversive. This sort of parodic irony is deeply embedded into most of these ladies’ acts, as indeed the purpose of modern burlesque as a kind of almost punkish performance art is a far cry from any anachronistically simplistic titillation.
After all, the original meaning of the very word itself, rather than referring specifically to the art of variety-striptease, refers to a mode of lampooning via exaggeration. Therefore one might well debate to what extent so-called burlesque striptease was ever a genre of straightforward erotic performance, completely divested of a knowing wink or veiled dig at the notional horny male audience. These days neo-burlesque does, at any rate, generally play to very diverse crowds of mixed genders and orientations, with shows which embrace many alternative layers of camp, spoof, and absurdism. Much of both the content and execution of the performances are intentionally over-the-top satires of old-fashioned erotica and erstwhile stereotypes of coquettish or vampy femininity.
The really bold acts take this to the next level and embrace the aforementioned extremes of comedically intentional grotesquerie or subverting gender norms, thus completely undercutting any notion of striptease’s putative function as pandering to arouse and please the heteronormative male gaze.
The show’s two key performers in this regard were the “bearded lady” Satin Spitfire, her strip gradually revealing cascades of green body hair between booty shakes and tassle-twirls, and Paloma Negra, whose Carmen Miranda-esque persona begins with various gags involving painfully pulling crabs and lobsters out of her underwear. Negra even escalates to a frenzied display of messily open-mouthed-chewing chocolates, before she finally reveals hairy, comically oversized prosthetic testicles from her panties, which she then uses like twirling-poi and ultimately rubs in the faces of audience members.
Slightly less aggressively weird, but still endearing oddball performers of note included Cello Bordello, who enters wearing an outrageous lampshade headpiece, or LadyBird Blue who emerges butterfly-like from a restrictive cactus costume. Both acts combined surreal costume changes with highly character-filled routines, which functioned as very overt parodies of a va-va-voom seductress and an excitably bubbly ingénue respectively. Somewhere further away still from the parody end of burlesque, hewing towards the slightly more traditional, were the sexy shimmies and hypnotic sways of the peacock-feathered Miss Bailey Bliss, while wowing the crowd with her proficient skills in twirling trailing silk “flame” fans was The Hooping Harlet, who opened the show with a bang.
A great time for anyone open to some mildly raunchy and sometimes not-so-mildly bizarre stage antics, performed with a heavily fake-eyelashed wink and elbow in the ribs, Burlesque in BED is an absolute hoot of a night out. Bring a date -- their reactions to all this ironic glamorous silliness may be a good litmus test for how well your tastes actually align.
Russian Doll Productions presents
Burlesque in BED
Venue: B.E.D Beats Eats Drinks | 36 Glebe Point Rd, Sydney
Dates: 4 February 2017
Tickets: $16 – $25
Bookings: www.trybooking.com
