Friday, November 22, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

'X' balances line between taste and titillation

The new topless revue at Aladdin manage to mix eroticism with production value

"X" tries to avoid the clich

There are a lot of topless revues on the Strip, but they're not as easy to get right as they are to present.

Sure, casinos love the late-night use of a showroom and the low overhead of modest staging and costumes (the fewer, the better).

But the real challenge is in justifying a true reason to exist, and in deciding how wide an audience to pursue beyond advertising that usually sells more sizzle than the actual show delivers.

I have yet to meet a producer of one of these things -- the new "X" included -- who will acknowledge the real competition lies beyond the Strip, where strip clubs cut to the chase and put near-naked women in close contact with the customer.

And I have yet to meet a heterosexual male who confesses to any particular interest in costumes, choreography or singing -- all of which can be found in the "covered" shows that women feel more comfortable attending.

All of this is to say that the Aladdin's "X" does the best job yet of finding the elusive happy medium. It's got enough skin and erotic sizzle to satisfy the bachelor party crowd, and enough flair to justify its existence on a larger stage.

First-time producers Bobby Boling and Angela Sampras have a combined background that gave them good perspective for weeding out clichés and knowing what to try instead. He's a longtime choreographer of revues such as "Legends in Concert," while she performed in the Riviera's "Crazy Girls," the longest-running of the Las Vegas topless shows.

Their simple, yet effective departures from the other revues include contemporary music, giving the women individual identities (no wigs) and not being afraid to go for broke on things such as "girl on girl" sequences that other hotels might back away from.

And while I'm almost ashamed to admit it, it would be hard not to notice some creative choreography in numbers such as one featuring mostly two upside-down pairs of legs.

The addition of a monthly Playmate might help justify the $44.95 ticket, at least for Playboy magazine collectors. The first one, Rebecca Scott (August 1999) sings a respectable cover of Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night" but otherwise avoids the high-profile duties of hosting. (She is available for autographs and photos after the show.)

The strip-club influence is acknowledged in the show's second number, when four of the eight women come out into the audience to dance on clear boxes.

But a strip club could never focus the audience's attention for a song that allows drama or a slow build-up. Roberta Lorincz uses Fiona Apple's "Criminal" for a steamy segment with a fedora, cigarette and sleeveless T-shirt. However, it's her tortured face that turns up the heat.

In fact, the secret to selling this stuff seems to lie in not winking at the audience or camping it up too much.

A sequence in which Catherine Treu and Brianna Navarro end up in a bathtub is treated with the reverence of a Renaissance painting, as blackouts "freeze" their moves toward a rendezvous while the women scurry to their next pose under the cover of darkness.

That makes the deliberate use of humor even more important in other scenes. It might be ironic that the biggest departure in "X" -- the scene most likely to be talked about -- is the one that's fully clothed.

It's a "Catholic school girls" parody that plays like a takeoff of cable TV soft-porn: Treu, Natasha Bernasek and Dejah Juarez deliver double-entendre-filled "reports" about presidents Jefferson, Kennedy and Clinton to teacher Andrea Powers.

The skit won't put The Second City out of business. But it does mark the only moment in any of the Strip's five girlie shows where you will hear the dancers speak. It could be shortened and perhaps moved up earlier to space the comic relief with that of stand-up comedian John Padon.

Padon works well in this setting because his matter-of-fact delivery is the opposite of the leering rim-shot comic you might expect in this role. He also sneaks some topical stuff in with the bedroom talk, such as not being worried that North Korea claims to have the nuclear bomb: "Didn't Korea make the Kia?"

But Padon gets back to the relevant subject in a toss-off line: "Love the sex. We all do. That's why we're here tonight."

And "X" is a show that's not afraid to admit it.