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CABARET REVIEW: Midnight Monster Mayhem @ Walking Fish Theatre
Last night, Walking Fish Theatre debuted their Midnight Monster Mayhem burlesque show, a tribute to horror-show hosts and their "damned and dateless" fans.
CABARET REVIEW: Midnight Monster Mayhem @ Walking Fish Theatre
Last night, Walking Fish Theatre debuted their Midnight Monster Mayhem burlesque show, a tribute to horror-show hosts and their “damned and dateless” fans. The show incorporated numerous ’60s and ’70s B-movie shorts such as The Pig Keeper’s Daughter — my personal favorite — and Bad Girls Go to Hell, which functioned as entertainment for a waiting audience as well as the perfect introduction to B-movie culture.
The show focuses on Mistress Paulina, a local TV show horror host, much like the eighties’ Elvira, whose midnight TV spot is being threatened by more profitable infomercial segments. The audience is introduced to her show and her loyal hunchback sidekick Clurb (aka Jane) just as her livelihood and passion are put in the hot seat. Amidst her seemingly final horror-movie broadcast, characters such as the new boom girl Bambi, station manager Action Alan, Daisy the “personal trainer” and a slew of B-movie regulars, like sea monsters and space aliens, get down and dirty with burlesque-style stripteases. In the fashion of true burlesque, the players of Walking Fish Burlesque know how to add hilarity into their sexy showcase. Even Clurb, played by Gina Martino, whose expressive face and mile-high personality won the show, excels in both self-deprecating humor and a naughty negligee.
The overarching story was the perfect setting for burlesque. Instead of an exhibition of string of striptease acts done to unrelated songs, Countess Paulina and Clurb’s horror-movie showdown was the perfect venue for numerous stints of striptease hilarity. Each dance was so perfectly exhibited, planned and choreographed that even if a bra failed to unclasp, it was integrated into one of the many sarcastic sex moves. And when you weren’t watching enticing clothing removal techniques, the intersecting writing was humorous and appealing. In total, Midnight Monster Mayhem proved to be the perfect burlesque – intimate, lively, witty, naughty and fun.
Fri.-Sat., Nov. 18-19, 8 p.m., $15, Walking Fish Theatre, 2509 Frankford Ave., 215-427-9255, bsomeday.org.
(megan.augustin@citypaper.net)
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