By Jim Berg

A stripper’s dance is a simulation of that moment when two people expose themselves to each other for the first time. It is a simulation of the charged moment when two people become lovers for the very first time.

But it is a simulation, it is not the real thing, therefore it is ultimately inadequate. In a strip bar, the equation is out of balance. In a strip bar, only the woman is naked, only the woman is exposed, only the woman is vulnerable. Some balance is restored by the economic power that the woman exercises. If the male wants her to perform for him, he must pay. So she goes to the rail, and she pouts and she purrs; she twists and she gyrates; she arches her back and spreads her legs, she runs her fingers up the inside of her thigh, over the g-string, across her navel, up to her nipple and into her mouth until she finds the right move that turns him on, and he reaches into his pocket for a buck to reward her performance. If she’s good, and has the right look, she can pull in $100/hour.

Is it a fair trade? That’s a judgment that one can only make for oneself. If a woman feels she has little else to offer for a living, then the answer is often yes. But regardless of the amount of money involved, it is still a harsh trade. She must remove her clothing before fully clothed men; she must do things that they don’t have to do. It is ultimately degrading because in the end, the man holds the power. Each individual male patron has the power to ignore her, to withhold the dollar. She doesn’t have the option of getting up and putting on her clothes if the men don’t pay. She has a job to do, and she has to perform for the men that will pay. Meanwhile, men who are exercising their power are sitting at the bar, or shooting pool while a woman dances practically naked and they remain fully clothed.

In a totally nude strip bar, the seats that are at the rail are referred to as “gynecology row.” It is where the man who wants the closest look will sit. In a topless bar, where the women only strip down to g-strings, it is illegal for the women to expose any more than what the g-string covers. However, for a sizable tip (usually $20) some strippers will risk breaking the law and “show pink.” This is what the title of Allyson Adams’ play Pink is referring to. Pink is the upcoming production by the new, innovative –and daring — theatre group known as The Foundry, based at the American Renegade Theatre. I was given the opportunity to sit in on a rehearsal and speak to the director, writer and cast about the show.

Pink is the story of a woman’s journey downward into a spiritual, emotional and physical pit that is a strip bar in New York City. When I spoke to Allyson Adams, she referred to inner demons and outer demons that Brandy, the lead character played by Kelli Maroney, must confront and indeed, demons that we all confront at some time in our lives. The outer demons are really only indicators of the real demons that reside within. In Brandy’s case, the outer demons are drug abuse, bad relationships, and the degradation of her work as a stripper. The inner demon is an abiding self-hatred that she seeks to numb with the outer demons.

But outer demons aren’t really demons. These outward things don’t have any moral value; morality is a function of spirit. Drugs are just chemicals, morally inert. So is sex, relationships and all the other things that really are just outward indications of the demon inside. The solution to all forms of addiction and self-abuse is not in the control of the outward manifestations, but in the control of the inner demons that move one to self-destruction.

Gail Bearden, director of Pink, says that this play does not seek to make judgments about its subject matter. The play demands that the audience see past the outer demons — move beyond judgment — and examine the inner demons that motivate Brandy. This is what makes this play so demanding. It is harsh, yet it is eloquent; it is titillating, yet it is thoughtful.

There are three sex scenes that are markers in Brandy’s journey. In the first two, she rolls out from under her lover, leaving her body, and delivers a monologue describing where she’s really at, and then returns to her body for the climax. Her inner demon has so separated her from herself that she cannot even be in her own body during sex. And the third sex scene, when she is present in her body, isn’t even really a sex scene. It’s a crash. The climax is the sound of her soul hitting a wall at a hundred miles an hour.

Be forewarned, Pink is about sex, it’s not about love. Brandy may be looking for love, but she’s also looking for cocaine, money, alcohol and good sex. In her world, it’s all the same, and it ultimately drags her down. Which is exactly where she has to go to find out the difference between love and all those other pretenders.

But why a strip bar? Couldn’t a woman just as easily go on this inner journey someplace else? The other subject of this play is a woman’s sexuality. Not very often is a woman’s sexuality treated outside the context of a man’s sexuality. It is usually addressed in terms of the desire she creates in a man. There’s a kind of solo-eroticism in a stripper’s dance. It is something that the woman does alone. The only connection a stripper makes with the male patron is for the purpose of enticing a buck. It’s not even a real connection. It’s just a very sexy “pay up, pal. I’ve got rent to pay.” So she dances in her own world until it’s time to pick up the tips.

Pink rails at the double standard that forces women’s sexuality to be examined in the context of strip bar. The result is an in-your-face attitude that says emphati-cally “Yes, I am a woman and I desire and I am entitled to my sexuality.” The whole concept of male sexual conquest (read ‘domination’) is defied in the lines that are delivered almost as an anthem “I’ve got the power; I’ve got the power right between my legs . . We decide to close up shop, you’re a fuckin dinosaur.”

What about me? Here I am, being awfully cozy and smug, delivering my analysis of the strip phenomenon. What’s my angle? Obviously, I seem to know more than a good clean American boy should know. Yes, I have spent some time in strip bars. I’m the kind of customer that strippers loathe — the poor, cheap kind. The kind that doesn’t sit at the rail, the front row seat where the obligation to tip is the strongest. I sit about half way back, buy one drink and nurse it for an hour.

Strip bars confuse me. The kind of confusion that writers like to write about, so when I go to a strip bar, I’ll write poetry on bar napkins to play out the baffling conflicts within myself. Strip bars are not pleasant places, yet they are attractive. After you’ve been in them for a while, when the prurient appeal has worn off, an aesthetic appeal develops. All the sex aside, a well formed human body in motion is an attractive thing to look at.

But I can’t escape from the knowledge that my patronage of a strip bar perpetuates the view of women as objects of desire and little else. It is true that many dancers are taking advantage of the good money that stripping affords to develop them selves in other ways, such as going to school. But how many men who go to a strip bar come out of the bar and expect women to behave in the world the way they behave inside the bar? How many men expect their lovers to be like a stripper? I don’t mean lovers shouldn’t enjoy the eroticism of a slow strip, but I mean the imbalance of power, where one performs for the other without reciprocity. Where women are expected to be attractive — sexy — even in the workplace, whereas no such expectations are placed on men.

Make no mistake about it, strip bars are where man is king and woman is concubine; which may be just fine if all parties understand this and agree to the arrangement. But something is wrong when a woman feels she has no choice and a man thinks that’s the way things ought to be.