“I think they might have reached capacity at some point and were turning people away,” says Mr. Maid Rite deep into the Red Light Variety Show on Mardi Gras. It was a packed house at the Neurolux on Fat Tuesday. The performances from the Red Light cast were just as lovely, sexy and fun as their show last October. More exceptional was how smoothly the night flowed last week. This cluster of dancers, musicians and performers has put in time well-spent working as a unit. For this production, the mix of hula hooping, belly dancing, pole dancing ladies; Theremin-ist, guitarist, percussionist, washboard-machinist; slinky Eclecticas and saucy Brass Knuckles all felt like family, not individuals tossed together for a gig. The result was a beautiful cohesiveness charging the evening with electric energy, driving the pace so hard that no one could bear to miss anything that happened on stage. Thanks to that, the bar was persistently stuffed and re-stuffed by an ever-curious and insatiable crowd.
The Red Light’s mixed nuts of players come together to make a community. So much of this is the nature of burlesque, of circus, of the freak show. These dim and glowing stages are prime location for getting passion and simplicity back into art and making it work between people, not special effects. The work is fun, flirty, hot, heavy, bizarre, brutal, dark and dirty—and naturally so. It is rough and immediate, digging at the core of humanity to awaken their senses for a laugh, for a squeal. Just for that ecstatic moment. Just for the magic of life, for love of the creative and to see a girl dressed as a lion spinning on a steel pole.
The Red Light Variety Show is becoming more and more dedicated to art for art’s sake. I hope this trend continues with a fury. With all the bemoaning plaguing the populace, the fears of recession, the worries, the penny-pinching, let us remember that art happens in spite of funding, not because of it. Art and theatre, however, cannot happen without feeling, without individuals sweating and toiling together as a family to create something toward higher aim and with deeper purpose. Let us remember the life, meaning and worth we must lust for onstage so we may actively engage in what we see as audience, both onstage and in life. Keep it coming like a freight train, Red Light, and keep taking great risks. Boise needs it.
Photo and Video courtesy of M.E.
