Talk of the town... Wink, wink - it's a skin spoof Mike Boone The Montreal Gazette Thursday, February 19th, 2004 Don't look for the barenaked Lees onstage at the next Super Bowl. But 15 blocks north of the old Gayety Theatre (currently Théâtre du Nouveau Monde), breasts will be partially bared and the spirit of Lili St. Cyr revived when Seska Lee and Elsa Lee present what they're calling a "post-modern take on classic burlesque" at La Sala Rossa. The Spring Roll Revue will take place March 1 at the popular cabaret in the Mile End stretch of St. Laurent Blvd. The two-hour show will include elements that tickled ribs and quickened pulses at the Gayety, circa 1940: comedy and not-quite-nude women. "We have to wear pasties," Seska Lee explains. "Montreal club regulations are quite strict." It won't be Chez Paree North. Describing themselves as "new century stripteaseuses," the Coral Lees differentiate their act from the drearily depressing conventions of bare-all strip clubs. "We'll be true to the vaudeville tradition," says Seska Lee. "Comedy and titillation, but with themes that are relevant to today." Like fantasy vs. reality, sex worker stereotyping, "losing one's soul in the consumer age." Hey beautiful, will this be on the exam? Not to worry: Spring Roll Review won't be mistaken for an NDP nomination meeting. "The show is an excuse for us to be retarded," says Elsa, who predicts she and her partner will barely cover the club rental and pay performers. The Lees use stage names to save their parents embarrassment. But Seska and Elsa are real: smart, articulate, concerned with empowerment of women in the sex industry. Seska, who just turned 33, has university degrees in psychology and child studies. Elsa, 24, has a classical music degree. Following up an e-mail about their show, I met the Lees yesterday at a downtown café (memo to feminista colleagues, marching toward my desk with torches and pitchforks: it's been a long winter). I don't know what I was expecting - big hair, purple fake furs, bad skin - but the Lees, bundled up for winter, didn't look like burlesque queens. Elsa - multiply pierced and exhaustively tattooed, with a wild mane of various hues - affects a punk look. But she lives with her mother and doesn't smoke, drink or take drugs. The bespectacled Seska has straight black hair that evokes faint echoes of Betty Paige. But the senior Lee is a clean-living vegan who could pass for the educator she was until she and her husband became swingers. One swing led to another, and before you could say "major credit cards accepted," Seska and her husband were running a members-only erotic Web site. Meanwhile, burlesque, played for laughs, was being revived by troupes of joke-telling, clothes-shedding, ironic wink-wink/nudge-nudging entertainers. The original burlesque appealed to the prurient interest of a generation that looked on a glimpse of stocking as something shocking; the Lees and their accomplices - including comics Premature Lee and Random Lee - aim at higher pleasure centres. It's a goof, a spoof and they launched it at Foufs. The first Coral Lee review, attended by friends and family of the performers, was at Foufounes Electriques in October. This time around they hope to have a couple hundred fans plunk down $10 for an evening of winks, nudges, laughs - and only a bit more skin than we saw during the Super Bowl. Seska and Elsa Lee will star in Spring Roll Revue at La Sala Rossa, 4848 St. Laurent Blvd., March 1 at 8:30 p.m.