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Lacy Knightly never judges a book by its cover. In their line of work, the cover doesn’t stay on long enough to judge, anyway.
The burlesque producer and performer has spent the past decade practicing the art of striptease while abiding by nudity laws that are lax in Oregon, but more restrictive in other states. Their long-running literary revue, Booklover’s Burlesque, celebrates authors and their works as performers use cleverly themed costume and song pairings to interpret the titles. Since 2016, Knightly and their cast of burlesque, boylesque and drag artists have paid homage to American and British classics, from fairy tales to Harry Potter.
But after watching conservative activists turn public and school libraries into ideological battlegrounds with their often successful efforts to remove books by or about LGBTQ+ people and people of color from circulation, Knightly felt like they needed to use their show to raise awareness.
Booklover’s Burlesque’s upcoming Banned Books Edition at the Alberta Rose Theatre brings to life books censored from library collections.
But unlike controversial classics like 1984 or The Catcher in the Rye, Booklover’s Burlesque will highlight titles that some readers might be surprised anyone finds offensive.
Maia Kobabe’s award-winning graphic novel Gender Queer: A Memoir (Oni Press, 240 pages, $24.99) holds a three-year running streak since 2021 as the most challenged book in America, according to the American Library Association. The late Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which often held this title, will also be featured. The illustrated 1972 manual The Joy of Sex—adapted into a 1984 National Lampoon comedy—gets its time in the spotlight, as does Wonder Woman, whose Bracelets of Submission have deflected bullets and censorship since 1942, almost immediately after her first appearance.
Merriam-Webster’s Elementary Dictionary even makes an appearance, after a Florida school district removed it in January for containing “sexual content” forbidden under new laws.
In the cabaret performance art world, burlesque dancers like Angelique DeVil, Zora Von Pavonine and Kit Katastrophic use striptease in their choreography to titillate the audience, often timing their shimmies and stocking peels closely to music (boylesque dancers follow a similar road to end their numbers wearing a banana hammock or less). Drag artists like Destiny Smokez trade stripping for lip syncing, though no rules say they can’t still take it off. Other artists on the bill, like Maxaroni N. Cheese and Given, blend the forms to make something all their own. For their part, Knightly will take the stage as their drag alter ego Nick Lacy.
“The goal is to bring awareness to the growing and continuing problem of censorship,” Knightly says. “A lot of people know it’s happening, with the banning of books in America right now, but they don’t know if everyone knows how bad it’s been getting over the years. I felt like, the historical censorship of our bodies, and how we subvert that with burlesque, matches well with the history of censorship in literature and the banning of books today.”
Knightly points to ALA statistics on censorship attempts in public and school libraries: Nearly half of the 4,240 books targeted last year represent “the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals,” with some groups and people in 17 states targeting hundreds of books in blanket complaints. Public libraries saw a 92% increase in challenges from 2022.
“Everybody hears about it, and we all know about the historical throwing-books-in-the-fire book banning long ago, but just how bad it really is right now…to see a surge like this is really troubling,” Knightly says. “They’re a minority who are doing this, but they’re so loud and aggressive that it feels like it’s more than it is.”
SEE IT: Booklover’s Burlesque: Banned Books Edition at Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 503-719-6055, albertarosetheatre.com. 6 and 7 pm Friday, July 26. $30–$45. 21+.