Musings on Burlesque

It appeared that burlesque took a terminal hit during the 2010 Fringe, when a major Scottish newspaper launched a feminist critique on its exploitation of female flesh and provoked the most glamorous protest march of the twenty-first century as burlesque performers marched on their offices. That year did mark a high water mark for the revival, with Kiki Kaboom introducing her chav routine (bellowing "do you want to see my tits?" at a frightened audience) and Blonde Ambition dominating the cabaret scene with a variety show that placed striptease alongside the cream of London's cabaret crop in the idyllic venue.

It didn't. There are more purely burlesque shows than ever in the Fringe. The Comic Strip has a classic, if slightly dubious, combination of stand-up comedy and show-girl strippers. Chas Royal brings his Circus Sideshow themed night north, even transferring the atmosphere of his London Festival to Edinburgh. Scotland's own Gypsy Charms, now PhD, has branched out into celebrity death match routines and an afternoon tease. Blonde Ambition has the flagship vaudeville Vive Le Cabaret at The Pleasance.

The apparent diminution of cabaret nights throughout the rest of the year is an illusion, caused by the growth of  specials - Vendetta Vain's Trideksaphilia, or Itsy's Cabaret of Curiosities. Meanwhile, Torture Garden Edinburgh is bolstered by a strong burlesque line up. Another sign of health is the emergence of solo shows, such as Tom Harlow's Pour Homme and Crimson Skye's Death Row Diva.

For many years, the neo-burlesque revival was conflated with the cabaret revival. They had much in common. Nostalgia was respected and mocked at the same time. The erotic was made cheekier and playful, in sharp contrast to the increasingly hardcore presence of pornographic imagery in popular  and on-line culture. There were alliances with vintage fashion. A shared fascination with the Weimar Republic, home of the decadent dissident, gave both scenes a political edge. But it will always be difficult to mistake The Creative Martyrs, two subversives singing sinister songs, for Wild Card Kitty.

The fundamental difference between burlesque and cabaret might be in content, but also in the format. Burlesque performers more frequently fell into the tradition of the turn, having routines and slotting into variety shows. The cabaret artist, meanwhile, would often pluck their variety act from a longer show. Des O'Connor might the host with the most, but he also has a back catalogue of hour long entertainments.

The war on burlesque in 2010 was not just the product of a few negative reviews. Before The Scotsman let loose on the perceived misogyny in the strippers' art, comedians were already making jabs at burlesque as a place where failed performers ended up. Given that stand-up comedians are usually male - and that comedy has a macho culture of drinking and boasting - these asides were hardly the stuff of feminist liberation. Yet they contributed to a rejection of burlesque as unskilled.

Even in a worst case scenario, there are probably as many untalented comics as burlesque acts. And while a woman undressing in public does need some special pleading to be considered feminist, a man telling a bunch of jokes about dumb blondes, or in the case of Mr Reginald Hunter, a routine about sexual assault's biological advantages is more immediately misogynistic.

The feminist intentions of  burlesque are always going to be problematic. They come from the idea that burlesque is not just a performance art, but part of a late twentieth century movement that asserted female sexuality, and that the community of burlesque includes lessons that explore self-esteem through striptease. There was also the evidence that burlesque was predominantly supported by female audiences and promotors.

In spite of this, the rise of mixed audiences for burlesque quickly become audiences of men, undermining this argument. A further problem is the inevitable eroticism of the striptease. It might have an amusing narrative or ironically deconstruct stereotypes. But the reveal is often partial nudity. Mrs Thatcher undressing might be a sharp political satire, but it relies on her female nature being exposed (unless she whips out a penis at the end. That would be a dramatic, deconstructing denouement).

Analysis of specific routines would provide enough evidence for both arguments. For every lazy glamour number, there would be a knowing retort. Ultimately, and unsurprisingly for a matter of belief, the observer's original opinion would determine the conclusion.

Ironically, the real measure of burlesque's feminist potential might be the opportunities it provides to its acts. One woman saying she feels liberated by stripping does not account for the social impact the act has on the collective experience of women, if it reinforces stereotypes about female worth being attached to physical attractiveness. But if neo-burlesque opened up new chances for female performers, both in financial rewards and creating work, it would satisfy a feminist agenda.

In the years leading up to 2010, and the immediate aftermath, cabaret artists were making their own solo shows. Most notably, Dusty Limits proved that a song, a spot of patter and a knowledge of Germany in the 1930s can make theatre that is, minute for minute, more intelligent and provocative than Macbeth. Des O'Connor made the vaudeville format an object lesson in morality. Miaouw Miaouw busted the diva fantasy. But there was a alack of burlesque shows that followed a narrative or theme. It remained relegated to the sideshow, even as Mat Ricardo proved that juggling could  hold an audience for an hour.

In the meantime, the cabaret explosion calmed to a fixture on the scene. The buzz around vaudeville as an injection of fresh energy into theatre has been replaced by puppetry (although 2012's Fringe stars, Boris and Sergei, did both). In a  few years, mainstream audiences will probably be all excited about Live Art. It is easy enough to argue that this buzz is merely the result of an art reaching a wider audience, and has no connection to creative energy. Like in music, by the time something reaches television, it has long since lost the vitality that made it unique.

For the most part, burlesque did not increase female visibility in the arts. The lack of solo shows by burlesque artists might be put down to a lack of ambition, or the prevailing patriarchal bias of even supposedly liberal art culture. Either way, the lack of change suggests that burlesque failed to attack the status quo. This doesn't deny the ability of individual  artists, or the explicitly feminist intentions of certain routines. But the fact that not many articles like this are being churned out, which try to assess the situation, might be telling. No conclusions were reached. The discussion moved on.

The sort of broad generalisations this article deals in might be unhelpful, anyway. The idea that a genre is intrinsically patriarchal ignores the merits of individual performances, and denies that one act may exist in a particular relationship to the rest of the genre. Even if burlesque completely reaffirmed  the objectification of women, one artist could make a work that subverted it.

A long time ago, this writer was trying to write an introduction to a solo show by Crimson Skye, and put it into a context that examined the tradition of the burlesque revival. There are no conclusions, only a provocation, marooned on the shore of Big Ideas. If the patriarchy does exist, and performance is a domain where it can be enforced or battled, individual acts are better places to make judgements than entire genres. And it is probably better to begin with an analysis of patriarchy than a hazy recollection of a moment when burlesque took the streets.

Old Eggs

It’s a stunning script, torn from the author’s experience of bringing up a severely disabled child. It takes the traditional soliloquy and electrifies it with stand-up comedy and music hall routines, shattering the fourth wall and allowing the actors to connect directly with the audience. It revels in uncomfortable humour and draws complex characterisation from possible stereotypes – the failing teaching, the manipulative mother-in-law. It even presents a public debate, complete with unsavoury bigotry, on an apparently intractable problem. It flickers between genres, refuses a pat finale and shows compassion to nearly all of the characters.

That A Day in the Death of Joe Egg was written in 1967, when the stage was still subject to censorship is not necessarily a cause for celebration. There has been little writing since that is so sharp, so complete, so precise. A litany of its qualities reads like a check-list for contemporary drama’s ambitions.

Not being a proper scholar, and lacking access to the latest texts on theatre practice – my disappointment is tempered by their apparent fascination with “getting back to the roots” and blathering on about tangentially related performance – my library is dominated by second hand books that were terribly modern in 1975. Having grown up as an enthusiast for radical, devised theatre, mainly thanks to the imaginative programming at Tramway by Steve Slater, these references tend to miss many of the processes that have defined my experience. Devised work is lumped together in a category called “Fringe”, alongside agit-prop, rock opera and happenings. The script is still king in 1975: one preface moans that the Arts Council has recently suggested that language is not necessarily at the heart of theatre.

I often say that “I hate scripts.” Yes, it’s a lazy line, a slogan that I roll out when I am about to explain why I am rather fond of David Harrower, or think Dunsinane is David Greig’s most important play. And there is a great deal of “performance” in my critical persona. I never really mean what I say when I am making proclamations: for the record, I have big ideas but struggle to articulate them, knowing that they inevitably contradict each other. When I say “I hate scripts”, I am really repeating the Arts Council’s 1970s declaration that they don’t necessarily form the foundation of theatre, plus a vague complaint that they are given too much emphasis. Oh, and that I have seen too many Shakespeare remixes that have little justification beyond another outing for the Bard’s poetry.

A Day in the Death... is one of those awkward plays that highlights the stupidity of my published catch-phrase. Any reservations I have about it are down to its original cultural context – the do-gooder industrialist socialist is a stereotype I cannot recognise, his wife is a cruel two dimensional bitch, and the best lines do go to the guys. It doesn’t really give a vision of the family that I can recognise – a stay at home mother? But as The Citizens’ production demonstrates, it is willing to address a serious question and still keep the jokes flowing. Writer Peter Nichols told director Philip Breen to go for comedy, not Strindberg. Yet the compassion at the centre ensures that the gags don’t become a nasty rush of spastic humour – and thanks for Ricky Gervais for bringing that one up again, to boost his flagging career and advertise his particular soullessness.

If anything, Breen is reverential of the text: he spoke at a post-show discussion about locating his version in a pop-art late 1960s, and his cast aren’t always comfortable getting down with the audience. Miles Jupp kicks off well, using them as his unruly class, and Miriam Margoyles offers a master-class as the mother-in-law: it may have been her excellence that kept her from being a one-note joke, culled from Bernard Manning’s Greatest Jibes. But Breen does bring out the comedy, holds the pathos gently. The choice not to update the action makes this a museum piece, but suits the production. A more modern take would have opened up questions about the different attitudes we now have to disability, weakening the bold strokes of the moral debate (should Joe Egg be offed?).

Of course, I am not suggesting for one moment that the play offers any special insight into disability. The real drama lies in the way that Joe Egg’s parents battle, and how Joe becomes a symbol of an intractable problem that neither science nor religion can handle and an icon for the parents’ personal failures. The father is a moral coward – his final escape is craven, somehow more morally objectionable than his attempted murder of the child. And times have changed: a piece like Girl X, created by Robert Softly, is a more bracing take on contemporary attitudes.

The Citizens are offering something important: the chance to see a classic of British Theatre, in an unfussy interpretation. It allows the script to shine – something new Citz’s artistic director Dominic Hill will appreciate, since he is all about the writing – and sets the author’s interests front and centre. Not only does this ensure that the casual audience – by this, I mean people who still cling to theatre as entertainment, not their profession – will be attracted, it offers an opportunity for anyone working in theatre to see a classic work in a clear production. There’s plenty of food for thought in A Day in the Death..., both in terms of its look at social attitudes to disability and the potential of the script as... the foundation of drama.

Footnote: Ah. I have noticed that I have fallen into one of my own traps here. I am banging on about the “theatricality” of A Day in the Death and not fully engaging with its broader social impact. I am especially guilty because it deliberately deals with an issue, and had quite a big impact in the 1970s. There’s space for a different article, that thinks about how it addresses disability, and lets dad off the hook for trying to kill his daughter. And while the most vociferous advocate of euthanasia is a caricature and obviously unsympathetic, there’s no positive reason given to keep Joe alive. The disabled daughter is an object, passed from person to person. The entire drama depends on this. That might be too.. conservative for me.

I have also added to this by calling Josephine, the child, “Joe Egg”, conflating the title and the character. If you’ve seen the play, you’ll understand why. If you haven’t... well, be a dear and see it before responding. 

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Three Types of Criticism, All Fictional

Somewhere back along the way, I became obsessed with the idea of a scientific criticism. After about

fifteen minutes, I realised that this would be difficult:  science is, despite claims that it is a body of theories  known as facts or statistics wearing a fancy gown, a methodology for investigation. When Nicholas Bone described the vision of his company, Magnetic North, as wondering would happen if..., then he was a great deal closer to science than the next idiot at the dinner party who starts shouting about natural selection being a fact (it isn't: evolution is. Natural selection is a theory explaining the mechanism whereby evolution happens).

I try to imagine what a scientific criticism would look like. It might look a bit like my blog, with all the different ways that a review or preview being slapped out at a rate of knots, and seeing what sticks (although thinking about it, that sounds rather like natural selection... when a particular approach gets a good hit rate, I repeat it). I am hoping that my Young Critics might provide me with ideas. In the meantime, I'll moan about how much criticism is theological or philosophical in nature. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

First of all, I want to define the two approaches. Quickly, like, and yes, I am just making this up. It's part of an attempt to find out how criticism works. If it sounds stupid, it is because I am either stupid or trying to begin a study without reference to existing theories.

Then I want to take the philosophical approach and see if I can't break it down.

Criticism-as-theology is usually the criticism voiced by artists trying to articulate their creative process, or make sense of their art. Peter Brooke has a couple of real beauties in his writings that follows his interest in religion and spirituality - and many of the interview on my blog have a similar attitude. For example, Harry Giles notes that, for him, it is a choice of making theatre or death.

I have come out with plenty of criticism-as-theology myself. Again, it's not surprising: I have never hidden my enthusiasm for Buddhist ideas and Jesuit spirituality. In brief, criticism-as-theology regards art as ultimately mysterious, an indivisable whole that cannot be divided into petty details. The puriest theology just marvels at its majesty, and attempts to reflect the glory.

Philosophical criticism takes a more analytical approach. It examines the various aspects of an art work - the materials, the presentation, the diverse influences - and assesses their contribution to the whole. It's probably the most common form of criticism: it stretches across the academic and populist forms.

This approach divides the performance into categories: it defines the form and the function, separates content from style, does a nice side-line in categories. It shares the broad general statement of theology, is quite happy to use a priori definitions and put theatre into a wider context.

Scientific criticism is, as yet, undefined. I could just take a load of scientific theories and apply them to theatre. However, that would not be scientific. It would be philosophical... true scientific criticism applies the scientific method to art. And I have no idea how that is going to play out

Works in Progress (A Sort of Apology)

I don’t have a problem with the idea of works-in-progress. Back in the 1990s, a great many of the big names of international theatre would tour their latest opus as a work in progress, learning from the mistakes and the audience, yet delivering memorable performances. And for emerging artists, they are vital: a space for learning, taking risks, or reminding the public that they exist.

I know that any attempt to discuss the frequency of works-in-progress gets very close to economic questions. They are cheaper than a full-scale production and in the current financial blah blah blah…

There’s nothing wrong with them, and there is certainly nothing worth bullying in any individual WiP. As long as they are fairly advertised – and priced – nobody loses.

What I am bothered by is how many there seems to be at the moment. Alongside the clustering of festivals, which are run on minimal cost by dedicated and brave curators, and often feature work by unpaid artists, the WiP has become the most obvious response to the contemporary credit crunch.  The rise of the DIY ethos, with its roots in punk and the “let’s do the show right here” romance of the musicals, prizes the immediate over the polished (and the veneer of polish, famously, can’t be applied to dog faeces) and blurs the line between incomplete and deliberately rough around the edges.

Here’s the thing: I’m a critic, and I’ll go to anything. I get sick if I have to sit in my house. Without an almost daily infusion of art, I begin to dwell on the mundane details of my life, and think about how I seriously need to tidy my bedroom before the rats gnaw through the protective barrier of dirty clothes that surrounds my bed.

Audiences are more discerning, and they are not going to be satisfied by the WiP. They want to see the money up there on the stage. Going to see a work in progress ‘by accident’ might not be a good thing. Unless the audience fully engaged with the process of making art, a WiP might come across as a shambles.

Of course, the audience most fully engaged with the creative process is “other artists.” The WiP and the DIY could be in danger of creating an audience made up of artists, and no one else.

In conclusion, I am thinking aloud. I like works in progress, but worry that they set up a cycle of artists watching artists making work for artists who watch artists and….

Jobs Agonista

When Mike Daisey originally presented the monologue The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs in 2010, the immediate controversy was not about the content but the integrity of the author. This is bullshit. Sophisticated analysis, if it ignores the savage abuse of workers to deconstruct the detail of the way that the issues it describes are presented, becomes yet another weapon to defend injustice. The bottom line – that first world users of technology to think a little harder about the manufacturing process - is simple and to complain that Daisey conflated stories of specific workers for dramatic effect is to find an excuse for human rights violations.

On the other hand, writing a review that praises Grant O’Rourke’s performance or Marcus Roche for his direction is hiding serious political matters beneath aesthetic preoccupations. The behaviour of the owners of the factories that produce our computers, our phones, our blenders, is inhumane. The Agony is valuable in so far as it exposes this conduct, not how O’Rourke holds his American accent for over an hour.

For the record, O’Rourke and Roche do a great job.

 Daisey’s monologue follows both the career of Apple “genius asshole” Steve Jobs and the journalist’s visit to the Chinese factories that make his computers. From the description of a suicide epidemic in one factory, through to the meetings with workers destroyed by long hours and repetitive work, Daisey pictures a living hell of relentless exploitation.

For the record, these meetings have been criticised for being impressionistic rather than literal fact, and Daisey conflated several meetings into single encounters.

Admittedly, the discussion of Job’s career is unflattering and may not necessarily relate to the cruelties in the factories. He comes across as ruthless but, as Daisey acknowledges, his failure to address the issue might be a case of simply seeing what he wants to see, rather than maliciousness.

But the life of a worker making a computer is horrifying. Daisey observes that people in their twenties experience debilitating physical injury through the repetition of their work. They sleep fifteen to a tiny room, and can end up on sixteen-hour shifts.

For the record, I am writing this on a computer that was made in these factories.

Having revealed the horror, Daisey recognises the complicity of the users in this abuse of workers. He encourages a more thoughtful approach to consumer electronics. The programme also suggests writing to Apple about it. The Agony is a cry for a response, an awareness of how the technological paradise of Scotland is resting heavily on the shoulders of the poor.

For the record, this is a first draft: more responses will follow.