FringeNYC 2013: Mercedes Benz Awkwardly
Smouldering pole queen Mercedes Benz takes a moment between lap dances and stage shows to tell all, a stripper with a sassy mouth spilling all the juiciest secrets.
Official production websiteShow details/ticketing at FringeNYC
Review by Fred Backus · August 20, 2013
Arriving from Australia to help close out the 2013 New YorkInternational Fringe Festival in its final week is Mercedes Benz Awkwardly, a raucous one-woman comedy about a first time stripper’s rise to the top of the pole.
The piece follows Mercedes Benz, who gyrates her way through a career as an exotic dancer at the Lips Lounge. As a naïve and – yes - awkward novice, Mercedes tries to fit in with her co-workers who sport such names as Bambi, Diamond, and Bok Choy, and is eventually allowed to “work the pole” - a rite of passage that has to be earned after first learning how to work her various types of potential customers. Inevitably, Mercedes gains experience and confidence and works her way up to being the top-earning “show girl”, but that’s where a sort of tipping point occurs. As the exciting new world becomes a nightly routine, nervousness gives way to boredom and burnout.
This sort of “behind the scenes” expose could have gone in many directions, but writer/performer Hannah Williams has decided to chart a fairly light-hearted course through her exploration of the adult entertainment industry. Williams has a gift for both physical comedy and back-and-forth banter with the audience, and her “you just have to laugh about it” style highlights both in a slew of comedic bits - whether she’s licking whipped cream off of a pole in an attempt to beef up her act, or pretending to fall asleep in an audience member’s lap after a long night of work. And fair warning, anyone in the front row – young, old, male, female – is fair game, though I promise you won’t be humiliated by the experience. Rather, everyone seemed to be having a great deal of fun.
In this, Mercedes the performer and Williams the performer are very much one and the same: for as Mercedes explains, it was her ability to make a room full of strangers feel comfortable that was really what made her successful. Seeing Williams interact with the audience, you can see just how well this might have worked for Mercedes, but also how the strange dance of creating a fantasy version of yourself that is totally separate from yourself might not be possible. If there is a message Williams wants to convey behind the humor, it’s not that Mercedes and her co-workers are necessarily lost, damaged, or exploited, but just ordinary people who chose a job that requires a persona “like a waitress or a customer service representative”. Perhaps it’s the rarified and heightened nature of this persona, and the way this persona is perceived by others, that can ultimately grind you down and take its toll - and that maybe the best thing is to just keep your sense of humor.
Preview: Interviews with Artists from Mercedes Benz Awkwardly
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