by MIKE CHAIKEN EDITIONS EDITOR For the standing room audience at Bridge Street Live in Collinsville last Friday, the stresses of the holiday melted away. And it was all thanks to Burlesque-A-Pades’ “Christmas Shimmy,” featuring Angie Pontani, Helen Pontani, the Maine Attraction, Albert Cadabra, and special Connecticut guest Dot Mitzvah. I, for one, didn’t stop laughing. And I smiled from beginning to end because of the burlesque antics of the cast. For a couple of hours, the pressures of work and the impending shopping deadlines became less important. Although at face a parody of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” this show is more of an excuse to trot out variations on old burlesque routines, magic tricks, and pretty women in elaborate costumes dancing their way to G-strings– and then somehow tie it into the fable of “Alber-neezer” Scrooge. Modern audiences unfamiliar with burlesque may find the thought of the art form musty and outdated. However, it must be said that the Burlesque-A-Pades crew brings the art form (and it is an art) screaming into the 21st century. And the audiences are all the better for it. First of all, the cast keeps the show moving at a zippy pace, perfect […]
by MIKE CHAIKEN EDITIONS EDITOR For the standing room audience at Bridge Street Live in Collinsville last Friday, the stresses of the holiday melted away. And it was all thanks to Burlesque-A-Pades’ “Christmas Shimmy,” featuring Angie Pontani, Helen Pontani, the Maine Attraction, Albert Cadabra, and special Connecticut guest Dot Mitzvah. I, for one, didn’t stop laughing. And I smiled from beginning to end because of the burlesque antics of the cast. For a couple of hours, the pressures of work and the impending shopping deadlines became less important. Although at face a parody of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” this show is more of an excuse to trot out variations on old burlesque routines, magic tricks, and pretty women in elaborate costumes dancing their way to G-strings– and then somehow tie it into the fable of “Alber-neezer” Scrooge. Modern audiences unfamiliar with burlesque may find the thought of the art form musty and outdated. However, it must be said that the Burlesque-A-Pades crew brings the art form (and it is an art) screaming into the 21st century. And the audiences are all the better for it. First of all, the cast keeps the show moving at a zippy pace, perfect […]