Image supplied by The Empire Strips Back.
You may have missed it but Star Wars Day happened recently. Fans of the 1970’s film classic celebrate it now every year, on May the Fourth (be with you!).
With a new sequel series currently in production in Britain, including the original director George Lucas on board as an adviser, things are really hotting up in the Empire. In fact, so hot that now all your favourite characters are stripping off in The Empire Strips Back: A Star Wars Burlesque Parody.
Producer Russall Beattie first developed his naughty show for the intimate music venue, The Vanguard, in Newtown, Sydney. It took off. Beattie threw out all the costumes and props and started again and, after some interstate success, this big-stage production is now back at Newtown, in the cavernous Enmore Theatre.
The Empire Strips Back is indeed distinguished by some high impact costumes, spiced with fetishistic reinvention (heaps of pointy breasts) and dynamically lit to rival the best strip club.
Our host, front of curtain, begins as a harmlessly evil guard from the other side. In the second half, he returns as Luke’s heavily Yankee older brother. As both, he is dreary and witless. He calls for audience interaction but with none of the fabulous language and narrative invention which gave Star Wars such mythical appeal.
Each familiar character is flatly introduced, then presented in a simple lascivious tableau, choreographed dully into a predictable strip tease, with almost all ending in uncertain anticlimax. It’s a lame show, a mindless after thought to the film and to burlesque.
Except for one gay token, a bestial drive between Luke Skywalker and his hairy Chewy, this burlesque is relentlessly straight. It has none of the queer shock and mock-heroic parody which empowers contemporary burlesque.
Darth Vader, Princess Leia and the Tuscan Raiders are there, stripping back, and the remote-controlled robot R2-D2, of course, gets very excitable amongst the flesh. New ground opens perhaps when the robed and deeply voiced Emperor is stripped to reveal an anorexic body wrapped like a zombie with a hugely pendulous penis – but this too rose too little.
Most impressive is the modelling around the lumbering dinosaur Taun Taun or the corpulent – and here lascivious – blob of Jabba. But there is good reason why no cast member or dancer in this show is in any way identified, except for the choreographer/dancer who goes by just the name, Tasia.
The large audience was mostly happy and rowdy, especially the blokes, but I wouldn’t bother with it.
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
The Empire Strips Back: A Star Wars Burlesque Parody
Enmore Theatre, Enmore Rd, Newtown
www.enmoretheatre.com.au
9 – 10 May
