A Burlesque Road

Abbey Road ( A sugar Coated Production) by Babes in Boinkland , Produced and Directed by Sugar Dish (Vanessa White) played at the Oberon, Arrow Street Cambridge July 31 and Aug 4 2010.

 

Take the last album recorded by Beatles, add a mature audience, a troop of very talented dancers, spice it up with a heavy dose of eroticism and you have a recipe for a very interesting night out.

 

 

Just transport yourself to a darkened night club with pulsing lights, a stage,  a large dance-floor, and scantily clad performers. Brace yourself as the first throbbing notes of "Come Together" fill the air, and you quickly discover that you are in for a very sensuous evening of dance, murder, comedy, strippers, lesbian  prison sex, an execution, an enormous jelly fish and the largest silver hammer ever wielded by Maxwell.

 

Yes, this is the Beatles Abbey road Burlesque style as  interpreted by Sugar Dish and the Babes in Boinkland.  Former ballet dancer Sugar Dish (Vanessa White) is the  founder and driving force behind the Babes and is well known as the genius behind the Slutcracker, a Burlesque version of the Nutcracker which has played to rave reviews.

In "Abbey Road" she collaborates with Abby Normal, Oliver Tryst, Pamela Passion, Pixy Dust and Rachel Stewart to tease out every nuance of sensuality and eroticism from the lyrics of Lennon and McCartney.  With fluid and hot dance moves the troop turn them into a wonderfully choreographed and cohesive ballet complete with mermaids, sailors, cops, octopus, prisoners, a prison warden dominatrix,  a priest, an electric chair, aerial acrobatics, and frequent strip-tease.

Making full use of the space availability the performance regularly moves off the stage and into the midst of the audience who get to enjoy the action close up.  There are no seats, the audience is standing, they sway back and forth as they turn and reposition themselves time and time again, stretching  to see the performance first in one corner then another, themselves becoming an integral part of the dance, providing a sea of energy across which sensuous waves of dancers move to the music. This is Burlesque, combat zone style, in your face, refreshingly up-front and honest, and in turns, highly erotic and then  tongue-in-cheek playfully comedic. The look of sheer glee in Maxwell's eyes has he brings down his silver hammer on the head of Quizzical Joan is  priceless, 

 

 while his later cavorting with her limp dead body after similarly dispatching his teacher (Samantha Bryan) provides some of the best dancing in the show.

 

Maxwell's  life however, is short lived.  Following his arrest for murder, the Warden (Pixy Dust) has her wicked way with him.  He awakes next to her as the sun comes up -  a slow and sensuous strip tease in reverse as the couple dress to "Here comes the Sun" . The priest then quickly appears and Maxwell  is unceremoniously escorted off to the electric chair were he dies to the strains of "Because".

Pixy Dust as the prison warden, Martha my Dear, plays the least threatening dominatrix imaginable, there are only brief  intimations of violence here, and she shows plenty of sweet and tender lust, first for Maxwell and then,  in a marvelously extended piece of poetic dance, for Sexy Sadie (Sugar Dish) in which the two make full use of the dance floor, the bar, mirrors, a moving plinth, and lines of toga clad fan dancers.  The wings and halo on Oliver Tryst as he makes  a fleeting appearance as the deceased dancing Maxwell  provides a  neat touch that adds a morsel of humor into this heady lesbian strip-tease which begins  with "You never give me the money" and continues building to a crescendo as the two caress and disrobe all the way through "Sun King".

 

Martha's  eventual demise at the hands of the Sexy Sadie, as she falls victim to a severe bashing from Maxwell's hammer signals the end of this remarkable interpretation and the troop gathers on stage to rapturous applause.

  This was a very professional production with the kind of choreography and dance we have come to expect from Vanessa and the Babes. The costumes and props were stunning.  The giant hammer passing from the rear of the auditorium through the audience to the stage was a touch of genius, and the jelly-fish was... well you just had to be there to see it float magically through the audience.

But just when you think it is  all over, and "The End" has been played, true to the vision of Lennon and McCartney  "Her Majesty" arrives bang on cue and for her full but brief 26 seconds shows us that she really is a "pretty nice girl".

 
(Please note that there is no full nudity in this production - the minimal dress is thongs and pasties).

 

 

All Photographs taken with Canon G11 at 3200 ISO, Aperture Priority using available light (no flash). All photographs Copyright Ian Murray, except BABES in Boinkland, Abbey Road image.

 

Oberon is located at the corner of Arrow Street and Mass Ave, Cambridge 

www.ClubOberon.com 

 

The Slutcracker (A sexy, Freaky, Holiday Zeitgeist Spectacular, can be seen in December:

www.theslutcracker.com

 

You may also wish to check out  Bent Wit Cabaret at the Oberon on Sunday August 8th, hosted by the wonderful Mary Dolan and Karin Web - with apperances by Sugar dish and Penny Candy.

 

Ian Murray can be contacted at murrayi@comcast.net

 

He is available as a photographer events, musical performances, portraits and headshots

 You can view his work at http://www.ianmurrayphoto.com

 

 

 

Comments

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i went to the same school as patrick. i remeber those girls from my school who wrote in. they were white trash...i always felt so bad for them.