goestoshow

Tudor Queens was a great start (in terms of new shows) to the Fringe for this year. These women have great rapport with each other and it shows. They dance well together and apart, they exchange witty banter pretty much flawlessly, and they manage to make the play both sexy and informative.

Much of the play is dominated by three of Henry VIII’s wives, the bitter and angry Anne Boleyn (played by Elena Porter), the smug and doting Jane Seymore (played by Ellen Chorley), and fiery and drunk Katherine Parr (played by Morgan Smith. These three form the major part of the narrative, with all their bitterness over their treatment by their king and husband laid bare after 400 years of performing a show in purgatory.

Even so, Katherine of Aragon (Andrea Jorawsky), Anne of Cleaves (Karyn Mott), and Katherine Howard (Delia Barnett) all get their moment in the spotlight. In particular Katherine of Aragon and Katherine Howard get very good dramatic moments, while Anne of Cleaves gets (if historians are to be listened to, ironically) probably one of the sexiest performances of the show.

And all through it, some very sexy dancing from all very sexy women. This is what burlesque should be, really. Not just arbitrary titillation, but something more. I think with the recent rise of burlesque, this kind of show has been something lacking in the field. Tudor Queens rose to the calling and pulled it all off.

I highly recommend checking this one out.

This play is already a holdover, so it should come as no surprise that it’s pretty damn good. I was expecting a little more levity out of the play from the description in the guide, but I wasn’t disappointed with the somewhat more melancholy experience I got at all. The songs and dance moves were all expertly performed, the frame story was interesting if a little light and obvious, and the climax poignant.

I only knock it down a little bit because not every story held me enthralled. A couple of them had my interest fading, and one of them I don’t remember anything at all from. I also can’t say that the parts I really enjoyed were as good as those from Shorts, which I gave 5 stars in spite of one part of it not holding my interest.

One really random thing that stood out for me, though, that is completely irrelevant to the review, is that one of the actors was wearing Vibram Five Fingers. Which is awesome, because they are awesome, and I never would have expected to see someone on stage wearing them. That was win.