Saturday night the Mrs. and I went and did something completely different, we experienced our very first Burlesque Show at the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts with the one and only Dita Von Teese.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know much about her other than her bringing the “art of burlesque” back into the mainstream, I just knew my wife always appreciated her aesthetic. So when I saw she was coming to the city I grabbed a pair of tickets so we could go see for ourselves what all the fuss was about.
If you’ve never seen the Palace of Fine Arts, you should. It is really a sight to behold. Stunning in both it’s design and in the craftsmanship of the buildings themselves. In fact, it’s such an amazing place, the Mrs. and I had wedding photos taken there over 30 years ago! And the view at night is really spectacular.
The Theater was someplace we’d never been, and it was smaller than I’d anticipated. (I learned after the fact, the capacity was 961) It was however, packed with patrons, most of whom had really gone all out for the night and were really dolled up, so to speak. The “people watching” aspect was as enjoyable as the show itself!
The show was described as a “variety show”, and I wouldn’t exactly call it that. Not in a traditional sense, anyway. There were however a number of different performers aside from Dita herself. Some were great, some were m’eh. We were a bit surprised at how slow- paced the acts were. We had expected a more high energy sort of spectacle, but it was entertaining nonetheless.
To be honest, I was most impressed with the stagecraft of the whole thing. The costumes, the lighting, the props…all of it was really top notch and a lot of fun to see. My only gripe was the sound system, it was not good. At all. But otherwise, I can say without reservation that it was a visual spectacular unlike anything I’ve witnessed in my life. Due to the “adult” nature of the show, picture and video taking was prohibited, so I don’t have anything to share, but trust me, visually it was very well done.
The Mrs. and I both really enjoyed the show and were glad to have gone. Though we did both think it was probably something we wouldn’t do again, unless there was some very particular reason to, such as some special guest we are interested in or something. Regardless, we’re glad we went, we had a fun night out and got to see a lot of interesting people and experience a side of the Palace of Fine Arts we’d never seen. And yeah, Dita looked beautiful too!
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The Boring Old Man 