The music is pumping and the booties are bumping in the lavender lit bar that serves as our gateway into the Rio Hotel’s Chippendale Theatre. Soon after we’re seated amid a sea of women, the lights go down and a fast-paced video montage introduces us to the 12 buffed and beefy men who will soon be lighting our fires.
Y’all ready for THIS?!  the Emcee cries out.

And so begins Chippendales, The Show.  For those who may not be familiar with the brand, the Chippendales are the Dream Machine – impossibly muscular men who shimmy and pose and give come-hither looks to women who have giddily lined up to ooh and ahh over them.  They’re not strippers, oh no.  They’re classy provocateurs – famous the world over for their “sexy yet tasteful” boy-lesque routines and their trademark bowties and shirt cuffs.

From the opening image of the guys draped in long, dark dusters a la The Matrix, the packed house of ladies can’t seem to get enough of these dudes.  The company is composed of “types”: All-American Jock, Hip Hop Guy, Naughty Businessman, Latin Lover.  The dance numbers (which come at us fast and furious) are a catalogue of traditional female fantasies: men dressed as cowboys, doctors, mechanics, firefighters. 

We want rump shakin’, pelvis thrustin’, floor humpin’ action and that’s what the Chippendales deliver – along with a healthy dose of humor.  Their 75-minute show offers naughty audience participation games like “Chipp Shot”, a faux game show in which our host dares adventurous volunteers to commit mild acts of lewdness (anything from applying a condom to a banana to giving one of the Chipps a lap dance).  Throughout the evening, the guys pull eager women up onstage for a little slap and tickle, but it’s all fairly clean and everyone’s in on the joke.

These sexy men are skilled teasers, expert at whipping the gals into a frenzy and then –LIGHTS OUT! –clearing the stage before anything too revealing is exposed.  No, ladies, you will not get any full frontal in this show (although several silhouettes give a girl a little sumthing-sumthing). 

A few of the evening’s highlights include: a classic strip tease to Joe Cocker’s sly “You Can Leave Your Hat On”…a bedroom “ballet” danced to Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On”…and a hot take on “Risky Business” – complete with pink oxford shirts and tube socks.  Throughout it all, the volume of the women’s shrieking competes with the soundtrack.  It’s very telling, then, that you can hear a pin drop when three dashing “Naval officers” clad in pristine military dress whites stand stoically onstage as “Hero”, Enrique Iglesias’ tender tribute to everlasting romance, croons from the speakers. The women hold their breath.  When the men start swaying, their moves are slow and subtle... a testament to the emotional weight of that uniform.  These men don’t need to take their clothes off; they’re already tapping into something real, a palpable fantasy that involves something more than rippled biceps and thick thighs.  For a few moments, we all feel this power.  And then, of course, the pants DO come off.  This time, though, underneath are respectable, chaste boxer shorts.

The Chippendales offer audiences an energetic and mindless good time.  As an added bonus, after the show guests can mix and mingle with the gentlemen in the Flirt Lounge and the guys are friendly and welcoming.  The show’s more campy than raunchy, to be sure, but I bet you’ll never think of fluorescent body paint in quite the same way!

-Cecelia Hart