All you know for sure about Murray Hill is that his name is probably not Murray Hill — oh, and that he may not be a he.
At New York’s oldest surviving burlesque show there is little point in feeling sure about anything.
The lights are dim, the wasp-waisted cocktail glasses brimming, and the orientation, even gender, of performers and the few dozen guests crammed into the tiny theater open to speculation.
“Showbiz!” exclaims master of ceremonies Hill in a suspiciously high voice.
Angie Pontani, the Bedazzled Brooklyn Bombshell, takes the stage, just three leaf-sized pieces of cloth and a sprinkling of body glitter between her and a violation of New York’s anti-nudity laws.
Everyone cheers at the bawdy dancing. Even a pair of rather somber transgender men, decked up in evening dresses and chunky necklaces, tap their slippered feet.
Spotting a couple of canoodling ladies in the corner, Hill laughs: “The lesbians — they’re having asthma attacks right now!”
Burlesque, mixing comedy, exotica, erotica and musicals, was a huge hit in US urban culture at the turn of the 20th century.
Eclipsed by the 1960s sexual revolution and the triumph of mass entertainment, the genre died out or was replaced by outright striptease.
Today burlesque is back in major cities as audiences rebel against an increasingly homogenized, commercialized society.
Hill’s following is so strong that there is talk of moving his show up to Broadway and the big time.
For now, his troupe performs in a secretive upstairs room at Corio’s restaurant in the trendy Village neighborhood, far from the regular tourist beat.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, building on the work of his predecessor Rudolph Giulani, has embarked on a crusade to make New York the safest, most smoke-free, fat-free, clean-living place on Earth.
But the atmosphere at Corio’s recalls an edgier time.
While this is not exactly strip, the Pontani sisters are soon separated from their clothes. Peekaboo Pontani could whip up froth on a cappuccino at the speed her nipple tassels twirl from otherwise bare breasts.
Neither is this theater — the red curtains are fakes stapled to the wall — but Angie Pontani does a good impression of an oyster having outrageous fun with a basketball-sized pearl.
And for all the chorus-girl numbers, complete with high-kicks, tap-dancing, red bodices, feather headdresses and a raucous rendition of Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York, this is definitely not Broadway.
Performers said after the show that their niche is growing rapidly.
Many were in New York to attend a three-day festival awarding Golden Pasties in categories such as “biggest diva,” “classiest dame,” “biggest media whore,” and “most likely to go gay in 2009.”
“A decade ago you could have put all of us burlesque performers into one taxi cab,” said Rosa 151, showing off glossy lips, big white teeth and big equally pearly cleavage. “Now it’s spreading across the States. An American art form is making a comeback.”
The charm of burlesque for performers, explained Rosa 151, is that women of all shapes and sizes are welcome. “There aren’t enough parts in the theater world for women who aren’t super skinny or who don’t look exactly like each other,” she said.
Another performer, Bette Noire of the Salome Cabaret, said burlesque was developing more slowly in her home state of Tennessee, deep in the socially conservative Bible Belt.
“They’re starting to realize that it’s not completely sordid and debauched,” she said, then giggled: “Well, it is debauched of course, but there’s joy too!”
Producer Chase Tyler said he was working to take burlesque from Off Broadway right to Times Square, navel point of Broadway’s Great White Way.
He said there would be high demand, particularly from foreign tourists, but he acknowledged the pitfalls in pulling burlesque from out of the shadows and into the neon-lit capital of commercial entertainment.
“You need to bring Broadway production values, uptown production, to downtown humor,” he said. “We just need to make sure we can bring this to a larger audience without compromising what it is.”
Caprice Bellefleur, the more talkative of two transvestites in evening dresses, said burlesque would continue to thrive in New York whatever form it took.
“Look at us,” Bellefleur said, pointing to partner Tawdry Heartburn.
“We’re as different as they come and there’s plenty of room for us. If there’s one place in the world that celebrates diversity then it’s New York.”
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