BurlyQOur Award: 0 Fringes
by Joel Markowitz
My goal has always been to find something good in every show I see, but dear readers, I have found a show where I can’t do that – a show that cared not one iota about its audience- and that’s BurlyQ.
Nelson Pressley agreed with me and in today’s Post, he wrote this: “Burley” (through next Sunday) in the Warehouse Next Door, which lured an audience in with the promise of nude puppets but stupefied patrons with its ineptitude. Go if you like awkward silence.”
BurlQ advertises “Return to the glamour and vulgarity of the past. Professor Ripley and Buttons Stafford step back in time to sing, to reminisce, and to kill an hour drinking. Nude puppetry. Free wine. *please note: the puppets are nude, not Buttons or the Professor.”
The creators tried to lure Avenue Q fans into buying tickets with “Q” in the title.
I know Avenue Q, and BurlyQ is no Avenue Q, or no Nude Avenue Q!
There was one moment of brilliance in BurlyQ, a momentary glimmer of hope, when a marionette – a la Gypsy Rose Lee, took off some clothing. It was a brilliant 5 minutes, but, alas the lass was not nude.
There was only one moment of nudity, when a penis was unveiled during the first velcroed puppet scene- a joke on the entertaining show called Puppetry of The Penis.
What audiences did get was a vulgar lesbian coming out routine-with a testosterone filled lesbian puppet, an elderly puppet with rats surrounding it, and a puppet with a shmata on its head.
I personally squirmed at the “Jews are cheap” schpiel. Did you hear the audience laugh? I’m sure you didn’t, because no one laughed! The audience was too much in shock to laugh, because nothing was funny.
I tell you, being a gay Jew in this audience was a scary thing today. I can only imagine what it must have felt like if you were a lesbian in that audience.
Even the free vino couldn’t deaden the pain.
Dear readers – spend your hard earned money on En Route, Queen of the Bohemian Dream, Petpourri , Blue Lagoon and Chocolate Jesus, all reviewed here at DCTS.
(Running time: 50 minutes)
