A grainy tape plays in the background. On the stage, a stunning brunette in a blue sequin dress mouths passionate words to a fedora-clad man. He has gone too far–he has found out her secret. She pulls out a gun–and pulls off her dress.

This is Film Strip!, the sexiest tribute to film across the decades. For two weeks only, Boston’s Rogue Burlesque and their guests grace the Oberon stage with this sexy, offbeat, and undeniably funny show. You know you are in for a good time when hostess Liz Fang opens by yelling, “This is a burlesque show… Get off the stage until your clothes are off!”

Film Strip! delivers on burlesque’s promise of sexy glamour: Lily Bourdeaux uses a knife to cut off her sheer black thigh-highs before donning a sequined floor-length black-and-white dress. Film Strip! is funny: the audience could not contain its laughter when Ms. Sassypants strips down from a four-legged sequined preying mantis costume, passionately consumes mad scientist Dan Prior, and emerges with his severed head dripping red-sequined blood. Film Strip! is geeky: Brandy Wine cautiously strips from a hobbit costume to a portrait shrine of Orlando Bloom in The Hobbit. The pieces have a deliciously irreverent attitude towards traditional sexual icons: in its homage to “Some Like it Hot,” Kitty Spanks plays a Marilyn Monroe who, increasingly frustrated with the props in her dressing room to blow her dress upward, decides to take everything off. A true celebration of the female body, Film Strip! features the pregnant Polly Surely in “Satan’s Little Helper.” The show also celebrates the male body: the men of Sirlesque have several numbers, the most memorable of which is the ever-playful “Presidential Undress.”

Film Strip! is what burlesque should be: a many-layered, playful celebration of art and sexuality. With only one week left to see it, buy your tickets now:
http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org/events/show/film-strip