Burlesque is back! RevealedÂ…, which plays the third Wednesday of each month at Under St. Marks, 94 St. Mark's place, is the real old stuff brought up to date. Now the strippers can go a couple of steps further than in the old days - no pasties, no G-string.
It starts with the lively, cheery MC who calls himself "Bastard Keith." He sings! He dances! He's funny! He's an embryonic star! Then: Amber Ray, a chubby, pretty amazingly enhanced woman with an Asiatic-flavored theme. She's a slinker, a loveable giggler; Anita Cookie is hilarious as a gum-chewing little girl as she does a great strip; the beautiful Madame Rosebud with humor and great charm as an 1890's masochistic soubrette; TaTa du Jour- a Marilyn on red sheets; Kobayashi Maru-Geisha reveals all in slow motion; Gigi La Femme- a bit of bondage.
Using the classic conventions like pulling gloves off with the teeth, the show satirizes stripping and does it well at the same time, each woman performing her own tangent, all beautifully costumed. And it has a spectacular ending with all the strippers on stage naked (with a bit of costuming implying character). The enthusiastic audience enlivened the show, and the friend who was with me said, "It's a great bang for your buck." If you don't want to see beautiful women artfully get undressed with a sly sense of humor, don't go to Revealed.
