PLAYGIRL MAGAZINE - GIRL TALK
Jill Morley Waxes Realistic in True Confessions Of A Go-Go Girl.
by Amy Drew Teitler
Dylan is on stage before a full house, bathed in a fuschia spotlight that shimmers off her black-sequined G-String bikini, illuminating the delicate ring in her navel, turning her dark hair a kaleidoscope of hues. She poses provocatively astride a bar stool, a feather boa swathed elegantly around her bare shoulders. She is a sex-bitch-goddess diva all at once, and only one of the multi-faceted characters in True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl-- a gutsy, one-woman Off Broadway show culled from the real-life experiences of actress/writer/go-go dancer Jill Morley.
Dylan's gaze beckons the male patron seated at the foot of the stage and her raven eyes drop to the folded bill in his hand as she approaches. She tilts the curve of her near-naked bottom toward him, teasing. Smiling bashfully, his eyes averted, he gingerly tucks the bill into her thong. She prowls away, her task complete.
Once back on stage, the seductive pump of the music subsides, the boa is removed and the alluring lights turn a shade less kind to the complexion.
"I grew up in the 70's," she tells the audience pointedly. "It was the height of the sexual revolution, and I was the most butch girl you'd ever want to meet." She pauses for effect, referring to a projection screen at stage right. "I had .. boy face!"
" I GREW UP A TOMBOY !! "
The screen showcases a junior high yearbook image of a very--I have to be honest--butchy little girl. Torrents of laughter erupt from the crowd. The seductress smiles, her persona shattered.
Dylan, the "Charlie's Angel" of go-go has once again become Jill Morley, "Jill Shmoe," as she would say of her real-life , down-to-earth persona. Dylan, named for poet Dylan Thomas ("Not Dylan from 90210," she quips in her show), is her undulating, ultra-femme alter-ego.
"I grew up a tomboy," says Morley, 28, a trained actress who spent her childhood in rural New Jersey. "The attributes of that kind of trashy woman were never associated with me, and I wanted to try them on!"
Her foray into the underbelly of entertainment that is New Jersey go-go is the fodder that went into her show, in which Jill plays herself and some of the characters she met along the way. These include: Edna, the stacked Latin Lesbian who breaks the "no flashing" rule of go-go to get better tips (Morley achieves this by enlisting the aid of phony, foam-rubber boobs); Hayley, the brash, boozing biker chick (my personal favorite); and Donna, the fortysomething, career stripper, whose highlight is a touching soliloquy on the empowerment of go-go. "I didn't know the true power of being a woman until I started go-go dancing," Morley says, as herself, in True Confessions.
We spent an evening together, starting with Margaritas, continuing at the screening of an erotic film trilogy, ending in downtown Manhattan at The Bottom Line, where we saw a very talented songtress.
"This is an original song about a prostitute named Cupcake," the singer told the crowd. Jill and I exchanged meaningful glances and tried not to giggle too loudly.