The Pinch Brothers (Also Sisters) In: "The Bawdy House" (review)

Cheeky, rowdy, bawdy, endlessly self-referential and, at its best, shockingly clever, neo-burlesque is garnering increasing audiences and attention nationwide. In large part, its appeal (other, of course, than ribald humor and undressed bodies) is in the audience’s vital role in the performance. The sine qua non of neo-burlesque exists in the liminal space between performer and audience, between whom there is a complicit, dialogic exchange, one inherent to the genre’s success and steeped in a gestural nod to the ironic recalling of nostalgic burlesque performance from the 1930s to the 1950s. But all the while, these layered (then unlayered) performances often are deeply steeped in humor.

Burlesque-style performers range from classic striptease, to vaudevillian skill-based performers, to those who rely on pastiche and contemporary contextual references; although they each tend to champion a certain style, their acts stand alone, with each performer working from her (occasionally his) own repertoire. Audiences of thirty-is-the-new-twenty-somethings generally pay a cover charge at a bar or small performing arts space and move between cocktail tables, the bar, or unceremoniously assembled seating. A typical audience might visually read as being fairly homogenous in style, race, and age, although, as evidenced by their interaction with performers (celebratory hoots and howls), they generally are versed in the genre—that is, these are crowds that don’t happen upon burlesque, but know where to find it.

Jonny Porkpie and Nasty Canasta from “The Unknown Stripper” in The Pinch Brothers (Also Sisters) in: “The Bawdy House.” Photo: Jo Weldon.

Enter Pinchbottom Burlesque’s producing and performing duo Nasty Canasta and Jonny Porkpie. Pinchbottom, with its monthly, themed revues, gives tongue-in-cheek structure to the neo-burlesque scene in New York City. Canasta and Porkpie’s January 2008 offering, The Bawdy House, was a homage to the Marx Brothers. (Perhaps there is no more appropriate theme for an evening of burlesque performance than a tribute to the Marx Brothers, with their roots in vaudeville and a self-referential style of comedy.) Waiting in a downstairs holding cell of a lobby, the garrulous crowd seemed to know the drill; this was not a crowd of newcomers. The Tribeca venue Collective: Unconscious (where the duo produces its monthly shows), which is nearly devoid of signage save for a vintage “Burlesque”- lit placard, framed the performance in a space that caters to a specific community. The act of entering the space contributed to the sense of being in on it all from the beginning. Those who attended clearly knew what and whom they were there to see (as pre-show chatter often focused on past and upcoming shows). What the audience has come to expect is how Pinchbottom performances connect the individual acts thematically, offering a cohesion (knowingly and irreverently imposed) not usually found in NYC’s burlesque scene.

Jonny Porkpie, Nasty Canasta, and Tigger! in The Pinch Brothers (Also Sisters) in: “The Bawdy House.” Photo: Ted D’Ottavio.

How the performers accommodate the show’s theme within their distinct styles becomes part of the performance, mirroring how burlesque performers work within and against the structure of genre. Opening skits by the show’s hosts, Jonny Porkpie, Nasty Canasta, and (fellow burlesque performer) Tigger!—winks to Groucho, Chico, and Harpo, respectively—set a predictable (if not plausible) situation for the ensuing madcap, and mostly naked, revue. The first individual act opened with performer Dr. Lukki. Packed into this first number were: the revealing of a two-dimensional hammer and sickle (which was then adhered to the backdrop to create a looming Soviet flag) from under a trench coat; allusions to blue- and white-collar work; the handing out of pink slips to the audience; and backup dancers in homemade gear costumes (picture three-dimensional, cardboard, cogged wheels, with pinup-girl legs). The finale of the number bared Lukki...