I enjoy reading all kinds of erotica, from the Bible’s lyrical Song of Songs to Rachel Kramer Bussel’s kinky Cleis Press anthologies and, of course, Anne Rice’s Beauty books. But I could not get through the “erotic” best-seller of all time, 50 Shades of Grey—not even Book 1 of the trilogy. The characters are just so unbelievable, the dialogue so vacuous, the sex so clichéd, the BDSM so contrived and the descriptions so mind-numbingly repetitive, I simply couldn’t stomach more than 50 pages. Just as the irritatingly naïve lead character, Anastasia Steele, barfs all over her first date with the equally annoying billionaire-dreamboat, Christian Grey, I felt like barfing all over lines like “her curiosity oozes through the phone,” “Holy Crap” (repeated about 50,000 times, with slight variations like “Double Crap” and “Triple Crap&rdquo
, “stroking his impressive length,” and “I don’t make love. I fuck.” I mean, how cheesy can you get?
Cheesy enough to sell over 100 million books is how. That’s a lot of cheese.
I may not be able to swallow E.L. James’ writing, but I can’t ignore the influence of a book that big that has women all over the world cumming in 52 languages. That’s an international horny housewife revolution. So when I was invited to see 50 Shades! The Musical, now playing on tour at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City/Los Angeles, I felt I should give reading the book another go. But even with professional motivation, I couldn’t get halfway through what seems to have been penned by a 13-year-old girl who got into her older brother’s porn cache. How, I wondered, would I survive a stage version of all that holy crap?
Fortunately, 50 Shades! The Musical is not just a stage version of the book. On the contrary, it is a brilliant parody that lampoons all of that holy, double and triple crap, simpleminded sex and bad writing. Using the artistic alchemy, 50 Shades! The Musical turns literary lead into entertainment gold. Sparkling with knowing wit and catchy tunes, it takes the unintentional humor of the book, i.e., Christian Grey’s insipid declaration, “I don’t make love. I fuck,” and makes it a sidesplitting showstopper that is sex-positive, funny and 50 million times smarter than the original.
It also gives James’ lucky but listless fairytale some much-needed texture and depth, providing a Greek chorus of desperate housewives who become horny housewives when, as members of a book club, they experience profound sexual awakenings through sharing these 50 Shades books. Even us erotica snobs have to acknowledge the power of a book that can turn on so many millions of women around the world, especially when that power is expressed in a hand-clapping Aretha-worthy grand finale that had practically everyone in the theater up on their feet dancing with the spirit of sex. Now that’s what I call a nice climax. Indeed, seeing 50 Shades! The Musical felt like my reward for having tried to slog through the mental torture of 50 Shades, the book.
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