Madness. Simply madness, in a really perverted, entertaining sort of way. Steamy Bohemians put on another of their Jerkus Circus variety shows at Ralph’s Diner in Worcester last night. The singing, comedy team of Niki Luparelli and her partner Lainey SchoolTree, in their tight, shiny yellow dresses and shoulder straps, poured on their own decadent charm and unholy humor. They also hosted a few comedians and two dancers from Babes In Boinkland who turned in witty burlesque routines.
They picked the perfect setting. Ralph’s Diner is actually a very funky establishment with a stage and bar upstairs. The Steamy Bohemians have been performing in Worcester for a long time and it shows. Last night’s event drew about two hundred people, which isn’t too shabby for the night before Easter Sunday.
After inducing the audience to shout their favorite swear word aloud, the two comediennes/vocalists launched into their original song about college days. Not only did their voices blend perfectly and beautifully, their suggestive humor was clever and laugh out loud hilarious. A combination of the build up and their timing worked wonders in their opening number and in most of the routines they followed with. In one called “My Love For You( The Mayonnaise Song),” Niki said about the mayo: “don’t get it on my chin,” and the double entendre gave the crowd another laugh out loud until it hurts moment.
They claimed they based their “Baby-O” on a 100 year old Appalachain folk song, but this quirky piece about how to handle a baby took turns for the tongue in cheek. One verse mentioned to stop the baby’s cries, you have to “stick your fingers in the baby’s eyes.”
Comedian Taylor Connelly was another hit with the crowd. At one point in his monologue he said he was afraid to have sex with a woman who had an abortion because he thought her vagina would be haunted. Connelly also mentioned a cat he owns who kept shitting in his bathtub and that he got revenge on the feline by shitting in his litter box. “But the joke was on me because I had to clean it up.” Another comedian Rick Cavanan went into a bit about homeless Republicans that tickled the audience with it juxtaposing of unusual images.
A showman who goes by the title Dezrah The Strange dared an audience member to tie him up so tight with 100 feet of nylon rope that he could never escape. Needless to day, Dezrah loosened himself from his bondage in a true Houdini fashion. Dezrah came back on later to perform a psychic surgery on a willing volunteer to assist with the unblocking her aura. He pulled many odd items from her stomach, including a ribbon, a quarter, and a playing card she had picked from a deck before submitting to Dezrah’s surgery. This Dezrah skit, unfortuneately went on too long, and by the time he found the playing card, everyone probably had forgotten about it.
If seeing Dezrah pull out bits of the woman’s anatomy with his latex gloved hands, wasn’t gross enough, another entertainer named The Human Floor let 10 women stand on his body at the same time, almost all wearing heels. The Human Floor also let people throw sharp darts at him, and most stuck right into his flesh. Dezrah, not one to be out grossed, came back later and hammered a nail up his nose. He had a woman audience member hold the hammer to the nail, and he tilted his head back to remove the nail.
These physical injury defying stunts were great attention grabbers, and they kept the audience on the edge of their seats.
The diminutive comedian, Rob Crean, standing four foot eight, had some lively moments discussing life in his 30s. He said he has found himself listening to more Coldplay. After claiming he was not gay, Crean discussed a sexual technique called ski poling in which he could jerk off two other men at the same time. His delivery and miming of the act was hilarious. He closed out his set on a religious note. He said sometimes when you ask God for help, “he tells you to go over to the open window, and jump.” Crean’s smooth and on time delivery made him a crowd favorite.
The next act, Mary Dolan, was billed as the world oldest living vaudevillian performer. The 86 years young hobbled on stage with a cane and delivered her entire monologue with a sweet old lady’s voice that totally contrasted with her vulgar language. A seasoned performer, Dolan, was expertly on time through out her uproarious monologue.
The most bizarre, surrealistic part of the show came with the act called Titler, a man with an Adolph Hitler haircut, small mustache, and a pair of boobs inside a tight-fitting black dress and black nylons. I know. You’d think it couldn’t get any funnier than that. But it does. Titler floored the crowd with his bizarre interpretations of Broadway musical, piano lounge style songs. Title ended with a finger snapping original song about an encounter with an alien. He was just too much.
Babes In Boinkland founder Sugar Dish did a striptease routine in which she smoked a cigarette nervously and revealed numerous smoker’s patches all over her body. Her pasties were actually patches too. In another dance routine, Sugar Dish slinked her away around a life size cardboard cut out of President Obama to the song “Big Spender.” Her pasties were dollar signs, but her message was a little too direct, too political, and didn’t make as much sense as her cigarette and patches routine. A dancer called Penny Candy was better as a dentist who tries to seduce and torture a patient at the same time. She stripped down to tooth-shaped pasties. Some blood splatter made it a fun, out-of-the-box routine that defied expectations.
Near the end a male “heckler” annoyed the Steamy Bohemians off the stage, stripped down to reveal he was a she, and performed a rambunctious slinky dance.
The three hour show went on without any intermission, freeing people to get a drink or something to eat down stairs in the diner. The loose format of the show made it less like theater and more like comedy at a bar. The Steamy Bohemians are onto something big, and, they need to do more to get their show out of Worcester more often.
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