Burlesque shows get loosey-goosey at Fringe Festival

OK, so I’m relatively new to the so-called neo-burlesque scene, so my question is: What’s wrong with a little professional polish?

The two burlesque shows I’ve seen so far at the KC Fringe Festival have on thing in common: They were under-rehearsed.

“Cherry’s DeLuxe Burlesque and Variety Show” is not a particularly outrageous T&A romp from the shared creative imagination of Annie Cherry and Lucky DeLuxe, two of Kansas City’s more eminent burlesque performers.

It’s set up like a TV game show, sort of, with former standup comedian Lucky DeLuxe handling most of the game-show host duties. The performers seem to be ad libbing most of their lines and so, predictably, talk over one another, often rendering their presumably clever one-liners unintelligible.

Annie Cherry sings a couple of tunes to pre-recorded tracks and her voice is impressive as long as she stays in tune. When she doesn’t – well, it doesn’t sound too good.

We see some derrieres. We see some pasties. We even see some pasties with flaming sparklers. The audience at a Thursday night performance loved everything about it, judging from their hooting and howling.

Criitics, of course, never stop asking questions and examining all the angles, so I kept wondering: What does this actually mean? The rationale holds that in our postmodern, post-feminist age it’s somehow liberating for women to do their own version of inherently sexist entertainment from earlier eras.

Maybe it is. But the results aren’t very sexy. They’re just cheap and amateurish.

“Cherry’s DeLuxe Burlesque and Variety Show” will be performed at 8 p.m. Friday and 11 p.m. Saturday at XS Lighting, 1632 Broadway. $10 with a $5 festival button.

To reach Robert Trussell, theater critic, call 816-234-4765 or send e-mail to rtrussell@kcstar.com.