DINNER THEATER REVIEW: The Burlesque Spirit of 'The Soiled Dove' Under the Big Top
Under the Big Top at Alameda Point, over 40 period-clad performers assemble to put on a show, 'The Soiled Dove,' for their audience--some there for dinner, some just for the fun--a latter-day evocation of San Francisco's notorious and long-running Barbary Coast and its louche entertainments, especially from the Gilded Age that mocked late Victorian strictures and the beginnings of what later was dubbed The Jazz Age ...
Arriving for dinner and greeted by a personable staff (who later take a vivacious role in the evening's entertainment), surrounded by other diner-spectators, in an array of dress from casual to period get-up, if just a top hat or bonnet, or evening dress for a few, the expansive sense of what the Vau de Vire Society, which produces the Edwardian Ball, has in mind for its patrons begins to sink in, provoking both a relaxed feeling and attentiveness. The audience has plenty of time for drinks from the capacious (and reasonably priced) no-host bar and the tasty, imaginative fare served with easygoing grace, but there's more than just food and drink to amuse in the enormous tent, even before showtime.
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