May All Your Lucre Be Filthy: On Jonny Porkpie’s Filthy Lucre

As it happens today (December 17) is International Day to End Violence to Sex Workers. I mention this more to marvel at the synchronicity than to imply that Filthy Lucre, Jonny Porkpie’s burlesque on A Christmas Carol is remotely heavy-handed (apart from perhaps the odd spanking or two). The show literally DOES contain a message about the exploitation of sex workers, and has among its cast Porkpie’s partner Jo Weldon, a great champion of sex workers’ rights, but you’d have to be an activist of rare seriousness to claim that the skillfully disguised moral is foregrounded. In the true spirit of burlesque, there’s too much wocka-wocka on display for that.

As in every Porkpie show I’ve ever seen, the author/director rides both kinds of burlesque like a pair of skis. There’s the bump and grind kind of course, but there’s also the Mad Magazine/Mel Brooks kind, which takes a well-known stage or screen vehicle and sends it up, literally burlesquing it. Most of the performers among his casts are as good at acting as they are at burlesque dancing. In this case the obvious examples are Gal Friday as a lady strip club owner named Ebeneza Scrooge (performed in the manner of a Hollywood dame from the ’40s, say, Rosalind Russell, reminding us of the significance of her stage name); the redoubtable star Tigger as a Jacob Marley who’s ALL about the chains (Tigger’s always reminded me a bit of Alan Cumming), and the auteur himself, part thespian, and part Catskills tummler, as Bob Cratchit, a Scottish Fezziwig, and Tiny Tim (whose name has to do with the size of his…crutch). In the mix too are gorgeously costumed and performed exotic dances by the scarlet Weldon (who’s always reminded me a lot of Ann-Margret), the mysterious MiscAllaneous DomTop, the gamely cheerful Corvette Le Face and Margo Mayhem, and stage kitten Cashlee Banks, attired in fetching Scots drag. Gal’s reindeer themed number at the end, was well worth the wait.

Fans of the original Christmas Carol will chortle at Porkpie’s twists on famous lines, viz:

“Are there no strip clubs? Are there no whorehouses?”

And there are lots of in-jokes about working in clubs, along with the usual barrage of double entendres. Porkpie’s queer-friendly shows make him a strong candidate for an heir apparent to things like the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, John Waters Dreamlanders, and the whole larger scene around those two movements.

You have two chances to catch it yourself (this holiday season anyway): December 22 and 23, at the Laurie Beechman Theatre on the Deuce. More tix and info here.