This piece started out as a review, and then it grew to two related reviews, in the midst of which circumstances then dictated that it also include some hard news reporting, which then suggested some memories, and certainly some history. Many of you already know the hard news concerning the West Bank Cafe and its downstairs cabaret the Laurie Beechman Theatre, but I'll save it anyway, for the great artists I saw deserve full attention before we swivel the spotlight.
Just over a week ago we caught What I Wore to Work, Jo Weldon's dazzling one-woman show mixing elements of a history talk, autobiographical performance art, and straight-up show biz. The theme is the evolution of women's fashions through the ages, as they relate to sex work and adult entertainment. That the headmistress of the New York School of Burlesque, and the author of such books as Fierce: The History of Leopard Print and The Burlesque Handbook should present such a rich and substantive talk should not come as a surprise. Nor for that matter should the fact that a burlesque dancer is giving one, though old assumptions and prejudices die hard. By now I've met so many burlesque dancer-author-scholars, some of them Ph.D.s, that it has downright became an EXPECTATION.
But Jo is one of the towering figures of the revived form in all its aspects. Her talk, which stretches all the way back to Ancient Greece, and literally answers the question Why Blondes Have More Fun, doesn't just illuminate a whole, surprisingly huge. area of human culture....but she draws on her skills as a performer to fill it with humor, song, storytelling, and advocacy. She wisely draws on accessible examples to illustrate key moments in the history, referencing figures like Cora Pearl, Nancy Kwan, Audrey Hepburn, Catherine Deneuve, Nichelle Nichols, and Jane Fonda. She tells how the Bild Lilli doll became Barbie. She discusses SM and fetish gear, and pays homage to great burlesque legends like the late Dixie Evans. And most rewardingly, she tells her own story, which will make you admire her all the more.
For much more on What I Wore to Work see my wife's terrific review here.
Then last night, the other pastie dropped when we went to see the Flapdoodle! 10th Anniversary Show, co-hosted by Jo's partner Jonny Porkpie and Las Vegas performer Blanche DeBris. Blanche and Jonny first presented some version of this show in Vegas a decade ago, and one can easily comprehend the temptation to revive the temporary team, as their comedy as a pair is reinforced by chemistry. Neither is the "straight man" in any sense of the word per se, although Jonny does take the Abbott part in a transplanted version of Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First" routine, which they perform in its entirety without skipping a beat or missing a laugh. They also did the old burlesque "Niagara Falls" routine, and sang a spoof-song called "Killing Time" to the tune of "Make 'Em Laugh". Above all, the duo were palpably connected by a common drive to bring the wakka-wakka.
As a burlesquer, DeBris's character is very much in the vein of Gypsy Rose -- Blanchard, as opposed to Lee. That's not meant as a dig, I just meant to say that she's less "glamor-peeler" than "loveable kook". Her highpoint was a naughty version of the old kiddie bathtub classic "Rubber Ducky". Jonny (who we've written about here about a dozen times) did a Dean Martin inspired number featuring stashes of booze, some of the located in some pretty intimate places. The rest of the bill was just as strong. Fancy Feast performed a hot jazz number on how she won't be stripping, climaxing of course with a strip. The hilarious Tiger Bay set an Abominable Snow-Woman number (complete with phallic carrots) to Celine Dion's cover of Eric Carmen's "All By Myself". Poison Ivory staged a dance to Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing" from the point of view of weed fiend. Jo Weldon made us misty-eyed when she summoned the memory of the late Bonnie Dunn, and taught a little undressing routine to an awkward but gung ho gent from the audience. Tansy stripped as an '80s newscaster to Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry". The extraordinary Veronica Viper came next. I can't begin to describe that act -- let's just say it would do well on a time travelling burlesque circuit with stops in Caligula's Rome, Fin de siècle Paris, and Weimar Berlin. Later, Fancy Feast and Tiger Bay returned as the "Classy Dames" to torture a brave ringer from the audience. Cashlee Banks was the stage kitten.
Like what you heard about these shows? Well, I'm sorry, you won't be able to see them, or anything like them, at the Laurie Beechman going forward.
They released this statement this past week, in between Jo's and Jonny's shows. From what I can glean the venue never properly recovered after Covid. They hung on as long as they could, and a 2020 benefit show bought a little more time, but apparently they can't hang on any more. I'd have attended Jo's and Jonny's shows anyway, but it seemed incumbent upon me to get there one last time.
Don't know the place? The West Bank Cafe was founded by Steve Olsen in 1978. The cabaret space downstairs opened five years later. Later it was named in honor of Broadway actress Laurie Beechman, who died of cancer at age 44 in 1998. Beechman had been in the 1981 revival of Pirates of Penzance, the second Broadway show I ever saw! She was also in the original productions of Annie, Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Les Mis, and sang at President Clinton's inaugural gala.
Beechman was still alive when I first set foot in that venue in the late '80s and it was a very different New York back then. The West Bank is on 42nd Street, just off 9th Avenue, which was still the wild, wild west back then -- not because it was so far west (that was actually a saving grace) but because it was right on the Deuce, which was still a red light district back at the time, full of crack dens, porn cinemas, sex shops, street walkers, muggers -- and the bus station. The West Bank's advent was actually a harbinger of the neighborhood's coming rehabilitation. In the early years, Lewis Black had a long term residency there, presenting his original plays. It was a terrific place to see experimental theatre of the Ridiculous kind, drag shows, cabaret acts, variety and burlesque shows, and comedians. Joan Rivers and Karen Finley performed there.
It's where I met Mink Stole a few years ago!
And just two months ago I finally fulfilled a long standing bucket list aspiration by performing there myself at Marxfest, thanks entirely to Mr. Porkpie.
I was very much hoping to get to do that again.
Does live theatre in New York have a future? At one time, people flocked to New York, and then some of them (of necessity) scattered to its bohemian borderlands, reclaiming degraded neighborhoods, improving them, then getting priced out again. I half hoped the Covid disaster would have at least one positive income, an adjustment of the New York real estate economy to some sort of sane equilibrium as venues and storefronts went out of business and supply increased. But there are too many destabilizing factors here that inflate and distort the market. For decades now it's been a city where owners would much rather let property go untenanted than accept less than what they're asking in rent, thanks to the invasion of chain businesses (stores and restaurants) which can afford to pay much more, and certain tax laws that help keep them afloat. At one time, there was such a thing as less desirable space, which artists and small business people could rent cheaply. Now there is no such thing -- in New York, at any rate.
It needn't fill us with despair. After all nothing is written in stone that says New York must be America's arts Mecca. It has been that for a couple of centuries, but there's nothing that says some other city can't become the new center of such ferment, or that the arts can't become decentralized entirely and spread throughout the country, which seems to be already happening to a certain extent. A bit of a speculative tangent, but it is a conversation many of us have been having for some time. And one certainly spurred on by sad developments like the closing of this New York institution. In just four years it would have been 50 years old.
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