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It's Sunday night in Eugene, and the downtown bars are near-dead. A group of tired-eyed women shoots pool at Luckey's, a few undiscovered stars sing karaoke at Downtown Lounge, and a half-dozen lonely guys line the bar at Horsehead. But wait. Something is happening. A gaggle of smokers loiter outside of John Henry's, looking mighty buzzed and kinda turned on. Inside, Lexy (her stage name) is twirling tassles for a standing-room-only crowd that eggs her on. Her breasts whirl with the tassles: clockwise, counterclockwise. Her grin is simultaneously sweet and wicked. This is John Henry's Broadway Revue, a weekly burlesque and variety show that embodies the bar's motto, "Classy as Fuck." The staff (all men) wear their black-tie best: suit jackets, bow ties and top hats. The female performers wear brassy little costumes. In one act, Dusty pushes around a broom, slowly zipping out of a baggy janitor suit in a sexy rendition of "Take This Job and Shove It." In another, Lexy and Katie sport men's suits and grip canes, swaggering to Nine Inch Nails. Later, Nikki scoots up and down the stripper pole in a short skirt and a g-string. The show has been happening weekly at John Henry's since fall 2003, when bar owners Keith and Mark Martin caught onto something hot: a resurgence of burlesque. The genre is generally defined as a mix of dancing, theater, comedy and striptease. Early burlesque spanned a century of showgirls — think Bettie Page, Lili St. Cyr, Tempest Storm, Gypsy Rose Lee. Women who teased the crowds but didn't take it all off. Women who seemed to be in charge of their sex appeal. But their empires were still controlled by men, and they performed primarily for men in times when hard smut was harder to come by. The 1960s brought free love and flowing porn, a deluge that drowned out the old-timey song 'n' dance routine. Straight men shelved their glam pin-ups in favor of Playboy centerfolds. They stopped drooling over the burlesque queens and went to strip clubs instead. They got more ass, less art.
Then, in the early millennium, the retro tease came back. It seems that the Internet, the ghost of vaudeville past and young, post-feminist hipsters joined forces to imbue the art of burlesque with a modern flavor — call it neo-burlesque. Women in traveling troupes like Fluff Girls, The Yard Dogs Road Show and the SuicideGirls Burlesque Show (see sidebar) are dancing, doing circus tricks and giving the crowds saucy winks. But this time around, there are piercings and tattoos on women dancing for themselves, and ladies in the audience cheering them on.
The Martin brothers wanted to cash in on the fad. Taking a cue from Dante's Inferno in Portland, where the Sunday night erotic variety shows were drawing loyal crowds, they piloted their own version by hosting talent shows at John Henry's and tossing go-go dancers on the speakers. Bartender River Hawkins became the principle organizer of the show, calling it The Broadway Revue. He's an image of hipster hotness himself, a 29-year-old with a serious face, shaved head and arms covered in brands and tattoos. He worked at local strip clubs for five years, and he recruited their dancers for the first Broadway Revue in November 2003. If burlesque is a blend of theater, dance and striptease, not everyone agrees on the proportions. In the early months, The Broadway Revue had as much variety as it had stripping. Some women teased off their shirts, but jugglers, fire-dancers and magicians worked the stage clothed. A troupe of six local women, Terpsichore's Daughters, did vaudeville scenes, trapeze tricks and cheeky dance routines in old-timey costumes, but they didn't strip down past their ruffley panties and corsets.
At some point, the scale tipped toward the stripping. During Sunday evening rehearsals, Hawkins plans out the acts, which get progressively racier as the night wears on. By the third set, most skits leave the performers half-naked. When the women of Terpsichore's Daughters learned that the dancers who went topless got paid more than they did, they split. "We, as a troupe, didn't like that women got up on stage, ripped their clothes off and didn't really choreograph their acts," says Terpsichore member Angelina Donaldson. "Their draw was older college men who just wanted to see tits and ass. Even though there was some sword-swallowing and variety, I felt like the night was a little more lewd than we wanted it to be." Donaldson calls Terpsichore's Daughters theater burlesque, which might make The Broadway Revue saloon burlesque. "We choreograph our acts to a tee," she says. "We like dancing more than we like taking our clothes off."
Call it what you want; just don't call The Broadway Revue a strip night. The music is gimmicky, the MCs are corny and the girls are only half-naked. It draws a different clientele than strip joints.
"Our customers are attracted to the tartness of it, but maybe they don't want to see a woman spreadin' her legs," Hawkins says. "It's what you don't see that turns you on, and that's where strip clubs lose it. People want more of a tease, and they like the theatrics of burlesque." The Broadway Revue crowd is roughly 40 percent female, and women demand more than T 'n' A. "You can only orient things toward men for so long until people get sick of it," Hawkins says. "Men are the lowest common denominator in erotica. For women to like the show too, it has to be more theatrical and less trashy." With that in mind, Hawkins and the perfomers crafted skits that are erotic, but also funny. In "Rubber Ducky," Sterling splashes around topless in a kiddie pool, rubbing on a toy duck. In "Rawhide," Dusty rides bareback on the stagehand, whipping his butt. The audience gets in on some of the acts, too. In "Beer Roulette," the customer with the foamiest beer gets a free drink. "Win a Date with a Loser" scores one lucky lady an evening with Billy the sound guy. And the amateur pole dance-off, a highlight of every show, gets brave volunteers — male and female — gyrating onstage. Guys are involved in the show as hosts, comedians and musicians, but aside from the pole competition, seldom as dancers. Hawkins would like to have a few male stripping acts, but he's having a hard time finding dudes who will do it. "I guess they just don't have the guts that women do," he says with a shrug. Regardless, the place is usually packed, and the same customers keep coming back. "This is the one day a week I look forward to," says Kevin Kimble, 33, who recently moved to Eugene from Memphis and occasionally does stand-up comedy for the show. "It's more entertaining than a strip club. The fact that they're getting naked is just a bonus." Victoria Reis, 23, a UO history student, has been going to the shows for almost a year. "It combines erotic titillation with performance art," she says. "This is a good alternative to strip clubs." Her friend, bartender Marty Weeks, 30, clarifies: "It's not necessarily better than a strip club, but if you want to see a show, you come here."
Some moments at The Broadway Revue are seedier than others, but the performers see it all as art. Mercedes, a Broadway Revue performer who also dances at a local strip club, sees one gig as a creative outlet and the other as just a job. "At John Henry's, people come out to have a good time, and I dance for me and my friends," she says. "At the strip club, people are there to get something from me, so I dance more for the customer." Lexy used to dance at a local strip club, but now she works days in a photo lab and dances at John Henry's on Sunday nights. She's happier with the new arrangement. "You don't have to be nice to people who are rude to you, and you still get paid," she says. "And you can get far less naked." Sterling has been performing at the Broadway Revue for almost a year. She was never a stripper, but she grew up dancing. She did ballet as a kid, theater in high school, go-go danced in L.A. and threw down for a few breakdancing competitions. "I love to dance and I love to perform," she says. "I guess I like to be in the limelight." Mercedes notes that while burlesque has a strong appeal, especially among people in their 20s and 30s, it's not about to put strip clubs out of business. She tested the theory by trying out one of her burlesque routines at the strip club, smoking a cigarette and tipping around a chair onstage. "People weren't into it at all." Which leaves the Broadway Revue as the only local show of its kind. It might not be Vegas, but Sterling thinks it's a pretty good deal for the 5-buck cover charge. "When you break it down, it's like 25 cents per booby," she says. "There's nowhere in town that'll beat that." The Broadway Revue happens every Sunday night at John Henry's. Terpsichore's Daughters performs about once every two months at Sam Bond's Garage and Cozmic Pizza. Their next show, with Mood Area 52, is on Oct. 29 at Sam Bond's.
SUICIDE GIRLS Neo-burlesque, a grungy incarnation of the classic soft-core striptease, is one part of the emerging "alternaporn" industry. It tends to feature models outside of the mainstream in a way that aims to feel safe and empowering, rather than degrading, to women. Ideally, alternaporn models have more artistic license and less pressure to spread than mainstream porn models. That's best seen in the success of SuicideGirls, a popular website that features erotic still photography of goth, punk and emo women. It's also an online community with member profiles, message boards, a political blog and online journals. Based in Portland, it's the cyber-hub of hipster hotness. The company's sole owner and president, Sean Suhl, won't say how many paying members the site hosts, but he will say that 55 percent of them are women. The site, with 800 models and 7,500 photos, has drawn the national media's attention and become a well-known brand among 20- to 40-year-olds. But lately, controversy has swirled around SuicideGirls. Some members felt cheated after learning that despite its girl-powered front, the company has a male owner. One blog calls Suhl, who reportedly has partnered with Playboy, "a right-winger who treats women like shit." A rash of models recently quit, upset with what they viewed as Suhl's sexist treatment of women and unfair payment. And an FBI inquiry, rumored to be tied to the Bush administration's "war on porn," led the company to take down several "deviant" photos. But women still flock to the site. Lily Hudson, a 20-year-old UO junior and SG member who considers herself straight, says that she likes the stylish presentation of the photosets. "I'm so detail-oriented," she says. "Traditional porn is so hard, so fast. SuicideGirls pays attention to the details — lights, colors and styles." Jocelyn McAuley, 30, a local artist and lab technician, is also a straight woman who appreciates SuicideGirls-style alternaporn. "I like the freedom of expression of the SuicideGirls," she says. "Playboy women look so plastic; they don't inspire me. But I get the impression that SuicideGirls are posing for themselves rather than for who's on the other side. It seems more genuine." McAuley views the popularity of alternaporn among women in a cultural context. "Women are conditioned to see the female body as sexual, but I think it's sexier to see a less explicit act," she says. "We're all so saturated with in-your-face sexual images. It's a new variation that we forgot was there all along." — Kera Abraham
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