Image courtesy of dog & pony dc“Stop the whining. Start stripping,” reads the first post from dog & pony‘s blog documenting the development and rehearsals for Lorraine Ressegger’s Bare Breasted Women Sword Fighting, currently running at Source as part of the Capital Fringe Festival. Reading the blog shows both the hang-ups felt by the actresses and the motivations for staging a show with the titular premise. The promise of skin and swordplay should be suitable impetus to attend, and patrons will be rewarded with just such brainless, if uneven entertainment.
The show has a vaudeville style and a carnival freak-show revue format, masterfully hosted by Charity Pomeroy, who keeps the festivities moving from act to act and warms up the crowd with not-so-subtle innuendo. The start of the show causes audible seat-shifting, and not for good reasons. A sketch about domestic violence draws some laughs until the disturbing realization that you’re laughing at domestic violence. The “Clash of the Ta-Ta Titans” wrestling match is entertaining initially, but grows increasingly shrill as the Warrior Princess and Damsel in Distress try to outmaneuver and out-shout each other.
The highlights of the show are the intermittent sex-ed lessons provided by Madame Pousee, played by Kelly Mac Isaac, and “The Virgin, The Mother, & The Whore” comedy sketch, which slings men/women/varying-planets-of-origination barbs like it’s going out of style. Although some of the jokes are familiar, the delivery and the interplay between the titular characters is engaging and even sweet. There’s something strangely endearing about a pregnant, all-knowing mother spewing vitriol about every stereotypical male behavior.
For those looking to skip the revue and get straight to the titular promise, the sword-fights feature both an animalistic Amazonian broadsword clash, complete with growling and screaming, and a sultry tango-style fencing exhibition. The choreography is stiff, and the actresses intensely focus on whether the next move is a strike, block, or a sidestep. The participants in the latter duel, Becca Bernard and Rachel Grossman, double as the host’s sidekicks throughout the show and give commendable performances in both roles.
Bare Breasted Women Sword Fighting runs through July 26th. Full schedule and ticket information available here.
