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Subtlety is one thing you don't see in 'Chippendales'

Rio-based revue gets its audience shrieking with its revealing numbers

Boxers or briefs?

Take your pick, ladies. Maybe it's the breakaway tighty whities of the Wall Street-type (Nathan Minor) who gets hot and bothered by something he reads on his computer.

Or, if you're patriotic, maybe it's the star-spangled boxers that a squadron of officer-types reveal after dropping their Navy whites to the tune of Mariah Carey's campy hit "Hero."

Or, perhaps, it's simply nothing at all.

That's where the men of "Chippendales: The Show" seem to have more license to thrill than topless-female shows in Strip hotels. Displaying more unobstructed rear views than their female counterparts, the men not only drop trou but G-string, leaving screaming audience members to wonder if there's any sub-G camouflage upfront.

The show seems to land on both sides of "Thunder From Down Under," its hotel competition at the New Frontier. On the one hand, it's way more elaborate, filling the stage of Club Rio with a flurry of costume changes, props and choreography.

On the other hand, it literally dances around that show's directness with its kitchen-sink approach, which sometimes seemed more tailored to the short attention span of MTV teens than the libidos of grown women.

Boy-band impresario Lou Pearlman is a major investor, so it goes to follow that the revue mimics a Backstreet Boys or 'N Sync concert, at least as far as its live video approach in which every song has its own MTV-like scenario.

The 12-man cast dons cowboy hats for Madonna's "Don't Tell Me," before roping a lucky gal from the audience. The hats provide good coverage before the song is over.

Another segment has a "West Side Story"-style standoff between two gang leaders, with the gangs flashing martial-arts nunchucks before deciding to settle things more peacefully: The two leaders flex their glutes on each side of the stage to let the audience pick a winner.

And then there's the "Let's Make a Deal" variation, which could be subtitled, "The bed, the love seat or the motorcycle."

The love-seat guy busied himself with candle wax. It's hard to remember what the motorcycle guy was doing because the bed guy was so busy, uh um, entertaining himself between the sheets.

It was one of several moments in the show in which a couple of female newsroom colleagues felt the so-called fantasy men behaved too much like average lonely guys.

"It was like they kind of forgot about us," one said.

A couple of other touches -- the "puffy shirt" from "Seinfeld," a line of guys wearing leather short-shorts and suspenders -- illustrated the thin line between gay male culture and erotica that's supposedly aimed at women.

But variety is the spice of life, and "Chippendales" seemed to have at least one thing for every woman. And collectively, their continuous shrieking held its own against a sound system that was tinny and overdriven to the point of pain.

Who cares about acoustics, though, when you've got Tarzan taking a shower onstage? That's right. The creative highlight of the show found the jungle man (Kevin Cornell) wooing another lucky lass from the audience who had been "chained" onstage.

After his shower, she helped him put his G-string back on and change into the garb of a civilized man. Having him get dressed, instead of the other way around, pretty well sums up the definition of "tease" in a blunt, cut-to-the-chase era.

MIKE WEATHERFORD
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The cast of "Chippendales: The Show" moves through rigorously choreographed production numbers reminiscent of pop videos or teen-pop concerts.
Photo by Ralph Fountain.