The story is simple. A graduate student, Grace Anderson (Gemma Isaac), who is working on a paper about sex and gender relations, enters the bubbly world of a burlesque troupe run by Shine Mionne (Cass King). The troupe is going through financial difficulties because of a decline in attendance caused by Shine’s unwavering commitment to the principles of burlesque—she will not change one part of the show for the ignoble purpose of increasing revenue. Nevertheless, she does hire a money-minded manager (Mark Waldstein) to bring some business back to her business. Shine flatly rejects his first recommendation—remove the fat woman, Lulu Von Doozy (Adraboo Green), from the center of the show. Burlesque is about a democracy of sexual desires: All can participate, anyone can fuck anyone, any body can be a sexy body. To remove Lulu is to establish a sexual totalitarianism, the domination of one type of desire over all others. There is a struggle between the manager and the madam—they also have lots of kinky sex—but in the end, Shine’s democratic values prevail.
What the musical succeeds in showing is how close sex-positive culture is to the mainstream. And this is by no means a bad thing; the joys of sex should be celebrated and normalized. Indeed, there’s nothing at all offensive in Shine’s language and its ideas about sexuality: Enjoy your body, enjoy fucking, explore your desires responsibly. These injunctions are as good and as moral as the ones you find in the New Testament: Love your neighbor as you love yourself, be generous to those who are less fortunate than you, let those without sin cast the first stone. Shine is just okay as a musical—and in an ideal (and more sane) world, it would take its place along mainstream sitcoms like Friends and Two and a Half Men.
While this review talks a lot about the politics of the storyline, it makes no mention of the songs, the dancing or the acting performances. Fortunately, The Stranger’s “Burlesque Box” writer Jessica Price addresses these points in her review on burlesqueseattle.com .
One paragraph about the plot. One paragraph about the moral of the story. That’s it? I have no idea if this show is worth seeing after reading this. Assessment of quality? Other than, “just okay,” that is. Whether the show sucks or is brilliant, whether the people who made it should be stars or give up and embrace their day jobs as baristas, they deserve a better critique and evaluation than “just okay.” Why just okay? What’s missing? Where does it fall short? Script, direction, acting, intent, concept, choreography, singing, the libretto? What rises it to “okay” from just straight shit? This is the second or third review I remember reading from Mudede and they were all either completely bizarre or just plain pointless. What did they do well? There are things Mudede does well–like pissing people off on slog–but reviewing theatre is not one of them.
One paragraph about the plot. One paragraph about the moral of the story. That’s it? I have no idea if this show is worth seeing after reading this. Assessment of quality? Other than, “just okay,” that is. Whether the show sucks or is brilliant, whether the people who made it should be stars or give up and embrace their day jobs as baristas, they deserve a better critique and evaluation than “just okay.” Why just okay? What’s missing? Where does it fall short? Script, direction, acting, intent, concept, choreography, singing, the libretto? What rises it to “okay” from just straight shit? This is the second or third review I remember reading from Mudede and they were all either completely bizarre or just plain pointless. What did they do well? There are things Mudede does well–like pissing people off on slog–but reviewing theatre is not one of them.
In addition to Jessica Price’s Burlesque Blog review, City Arts just posted an insightful review on their blog that may assist you in deciding whether to attend.
You answered your own question…
the choreography and the costumes and the set were good. the actors were cute.
the rest:
meh.