ANGELS
How do you portray the world of strippers without either demeaning them or ignoring the hazards of their working environment? Diane Herbert’s work in progress, Angels, a charming, insightful new play, gracefully manages to do both. This new piece is an honest reflection of the daily hazards strippers often face while also being a love letter to the dancers themselves.
Angels looks at a single day in the working lives of two dancers Gloria and Angel, two dancers who are very much at the opposite ends of a stripper’s dancing life. Angel is an aspiring actor who has only just begun dancing, doing so to finance her big break. Living in a cramped, cheap flat with walls so thin that she frequently hears her flatmate’s rather vocal lovemaking, she’s desperate to change her life.
Gloria is a thirty-four year old veteran, a stressed out single mother, happily ensconced in the suburbs and from all intents and purposes, appearing to live a comfortable life. None of her neighbours know what she does for a living and Gloria is very happy to keep it that way.
These opening scenes are important since they establish these characters as being just regular everyday women, simply trying to carve out independent and financially secure lives for themselves. This is rarely seen in plays or films about strippers, since they are most often seen through the male gaze.
Once Gloria and Angel arrive at the club, we see their working alter egos. Mauricia Lewis as Angel becomes what is referred to as the “baby stripper” a term used for stripping novices. When she dances she’s all impossibly long legs and arms, alternating between looking like a gawky teenager engagingly tugging at her fishnet stockings, which endearingly keep slipping down, then at other moments appearing impossibly beautiful, like a young Josephine Baker.
Theresa GodlyTheresa Godly’s Gloria on the other hand is all womanly sensuality, like a contemporary version of French screen goddess Simone Signoret; you feel that she’s seen it all, done it all and bought the T-shirt, so very little shocks her. This is made clear to us in her well-written monologue on the variety of customers the girls encounter daily. You almost feel that if she hasn’t seen them, then they must not exist. The only time Gloria’s confidence slips is when she speaks about a recent encounter with her abusive ex-husband, who unexpectedly turns up at the club one night. We see this beautiful, confident woman suddenly transform into a terrified wreck, sadly an all too familiar figure of domestic abuse. Gloria is considering giving up dancing to become what is called in the industry a “house mom”, the figure in the clubs who looks after the welfare of the girls. She puts it very well, “I want to look out for them, since no one looked out for me.”
Rupert Harvey, playing all the various male customers, joins Theresa Godly and Mauricia Lewis on stage. We see him first as Gloria’s abusive ex-husband, all simmering rage, then he transforms into a manipulative Hollywood film executive who cynically hopes to exploit Angel’s quest for film stardom, marking her out as easy prey. It is to Harvey’s credit that he makes the film executive even creepier then Gloria’s ex. You feel with Gloria’s ex-husband that he at least exhibits a degree of self-knowledge, while the film executive has none; acting like a true predator, he exudes a smarmy American charm, cleverly masking his true intent to exploit Angel’s innocence. Completing this trio of male customers is a lovesick man who to his own amazement has found himself in love with one of the girls, a transgender dancer, someone we never actually see. He’s convinced that he loves her, but in this unreal environment can we really trust anything these men actually say?
Theresa points out through her character Gloria how changeable the customers can actually be, recounting how once while dancing for a customer, who appeared calm and happy, he suddenly changed and became violent, ending up throwing a champagne glass at her face, missing her by inches. The play makes clear that the men who go there are rarely what they appear to be.
Theresa Godly, Mauricia Lewis and Rupert Harvey give extraordinary performances, even more astonishing when you consider that they had a mere four days to rehearse.
Despite the subject matter, director Beverly Andrews has managed to create a beautifully seductive production where you begin to understand why customers return again and again. Valerie Sadoh the show’s producer along with the play’s author Diane Herbert have produced a thoughtful, beautifully written, provocative piece, which makes you eager to see the completed play. Angels is a needed addition to the debate about women working in the field of adult entertainment. It is a rare work, which genuinely appears to like its female characters. We wish them well as we witness the conditions they work in and the financial pressures they face. The play also highlights that, given the proliferation of strip clubs around the world today, perhaps the time has come for society to address the need for them. Is it our prudish reluctance to actually have a frank and honest discussion about sex which prevents this from happening? Angels is such a powerful piece that long after its conclusion, its images and sexy soundtrack, Teddy Pendergrass - You’re My Choice Tonight, linger in your mind for days after.
FΩRMIdea London, 24th May 2018.
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