THEATER WEEK - REVIEW
True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl
by Leslie Hoban Blake
Although Jill Morley's True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl moved uptown this Spring, it has yet to move upstairs. Her one-woman show now plays Wednesday nights, through July at the Westbank's Downstairs Theater.
As one of Penny Arcade's "go-go dancers of all persuasions," Morley appeared in several versions of Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! both at P.S. 122 and The Village Gate. Like Arcade, she's turned life experiences into some sharp theater.
Catholic-educated Morley uses her confrontational/confessional style to introduce us to life in the go-go world, alternately sucking us in with the promise of sleaze and then laughing at our expectations. It's a graphically humorous illustration of sexual illusion versus reality. Wearing just a bikini thong, tiny bra, killer heels, and a smile on her pretty "girl-next-door" face, she gyrates suggestively to the strains of "Do You Think I'm Sexy?" as she explains that she first began go-go dancing to pay for her acting classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse. She's done some catering, she tells us, but go-go pays better and as for her costumes, her scanties beat the mustache and sombrero she once had to wear to serve a Mexican theme dinner.
Wearing just a bikini thong, tiny bra, killer heels, and a smile ......
But go-go offers it "girls" certain psychological fringe benefits over and above the monetary. "I loved the power I had over men." she confesses early in the show before she divulges some of go-go's secrets. To start with, there's a vivid demonstration of her "my ass in your face" pose. Slapping one bare cheek, she explains, is go-go sign language for, "Your time is up, gimme the goddamned dollar!" Collecting lots of "dead Presidents" is the goal of every set and each dancer has her own style.
First up in her "go-go gallery" is Dylan, the name under which Morley herself dances. She starts out as a tomboy with low self-esteem and a "Farrah Fawcett" complex. "All I could do was vogue," so the club owner at the first audition has to jump on-stage to show her how to "hump air." But Dylan's a fast learner, picking up further-on-the-job "skills" as well as go-go do's and don'ts. Example: "cops monitor nipple exposure," so don't flash them, even if they win you over with higher tips. It's a Catch 22 -- what to do? In an almost surreal segment, Morley portrays Edna, a well-endowed, but very manic, Latina dancer who is an inveterate sneak flasher.
Tricks of the trade: Creative Dollar folding!
And then there are the purely mundane tricks of the go-go trade, creative dollar folding, to name one. But regardless of the sleazoid aura that sticks to go-go, Morley depicts it as pure theater, as innocent as mom's apple pie. In fact, one of Morley's go-go portraits is Donna, a 45-year old wife and former den mother who's been dancing for 22 years. Donna "put Carl through podiatry school" by dancing, but now she does it "to get out of the house," so, of course, her teenaged son winds up in the club during her set one night. Hayley, another of Dylan's go-go teachers," is a biker chick who wrestles in pudding ("because Jello stains your skin") while maintaining an existential pose.
When Dylan finally feels she's ready, she hires Doninick, a go-go agent who only books the "high class babe circuit."
Morley characterizes straight "go" (note the singular use of the verb) as a perfectly acceptable alternative job market, populated by students, secretaries, and (of course) actresses, in addition to full-time career dancers. When she talks about "selling the illusion," I'm reminded of the legendary Gypsy Rose Lee. They share a certain wit and intelligence, and Morley could be her updated, spiritual younger sister in the skin trade.
Her ironic sense of humor and honest portrayals make this a perfect summer showcase for her substantial acting and writing skills. Late in the show, she lets slip that sometimes it "becomes hard to make distinctions." Under that sense of power she mentioned earlier lurks the dreaded "need for male approval." At just a little over an hour, ... Go-Go Girl may not be long enough to qualify as a full evening of theater, but Morley indicates that she's on her way upstairs.
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