Daughters of Lot, Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2012

Answers by:
Alexis Roblan
Playwright/Producer - 
Synaptic Nerve Coordinator - Brain Melt Consortium

I was very enthusiastic about the burlesque revival about three years ago - right up until I saw the Wau Wau Sisters at the Fringe. Not only were they brilliant, they seemed to remind me that most burlesque had degenerated into ironic striptease and lacked the energy or verve that it was supposed to embody. In your press release, you explicitly mention feminism and have an interesting angle on gender politics. But can burlesque be rescued from the sort of shows it has become - tassels and male stand up comedians re-enforcing stereotypes?

One of the initial inspirations for Daughters of Lot was an interview I saw with Robyn Antin, founder of the Pussycat Dolls, in which she claimed that they were a feminist group. It was the sort of statement that made me, a young woman in my 20s who’d always considered myself a “feminist,” ask: “What does that word mean to someone like that? What does it mean to any of us at this point?”

Certain forms of burlesque can empower, and certain forms can do the exact opposite – and yet western culture has somehow begun to accept the word “burlesque” as a synonym for funsexual empowerment, as something which can do no wrong (unless you’re a prude). I set out to write a direct critique of the type of Girl Power “feminism” that continues to measure women by the exact standards our mothers and grandmothers fought against, and call it empowerment because “we’re doing it to ourselves.” 

Daughters takes the form of a burlesque show both because of what burlesque really can offer (fantastic theatricality, engagement with the audience, humor, and yes, titillation), and as a means of criticizing the cultural messages that young women receive about their own power and sexuality when “burlesque” groups like the Pussycat Dolls become our symbols of female empowerment. My ideal theatre is one that mixes raw emotion and socio-political anger with a healthy dose of humor and spectacle, and I think the best burlesque performance really has the potential to embody that. And theatre could do well with an infusion of that “energy and verve” that great burlesque brings with it.

While I acknowledge that sexuality can be an interesting tactic on stage, it seems to be used to titillate rather than provoke. is it possible to avoid this?

If you’re able to catch Daughters of Lot, I think you’ll have your answer. There’s no question that we use sexuality to titillate, but that wouldn’t be worthwhile if it weren’t provocative as well. I think my director, Rachel Kerry, is really talented at finding that balance. 

As a writer, I’m incredibly interested in sex and sexuality. It’s such a fantastic window into the psychology of both individuals and societies – and even the suggestion of different kinds of sex can draw almost immediate physiological responses, both positive and negative. I think you avoid using sex as a merely “titillating” tool when you make the sexual situations provocative – something that’s not that difficult if it’s what you’re actually interested in.

Now the Bible - - I am interested in how theology seems to be reduced to a branch of theatre studies these days... where does the name come from and how do we get to Bible burlesque?

Old Testament stories are bizarre and wonderful, and I personally think they deserve more play in secular society. As a storyteller and lapsed Catholic, I find myself going back to them a lot for inspiration. Daughters of Lot starts off with a burlesque retelling of the Sodom and Gomorrah story—not too much of a stretch since even those of us who know nothing about the Bible probably know that this story involves lots of sin and, well, sodomy. But it also seemed to me like a really appropriate starting place for a conversation about female sexual agency. In the story, Lot is the only righteous man in Sodom, and he has two virgin daughters. 

The daughters don’t have names, their father offers them to be raped by strangers at one point in order to protect his house guests, and by the end of the story, they end up getting their dad drunk and basically raping him in order to repopulate the earth. It’s interesting how the Bible seems to insinuate that incest was the correct course of action in this case, but simultaneously absolves Lot, the righteous Man, from any responsibility for it—just in case we still find it icky. I wanted to track the psychology of Lot’s daughters in that story, and I also wanted to ask: if this were a modern story, would it play out in the same way? Would the motivations be the same? So the play follows Lot’s daughters as they learn about modern men and women from the burlesque dancers, resulting in something that I think is really entertaining, funny, and sexy, but also disturbing, provocative, and possibly tragic.