Women have always shared their stories in the privacy of bedrooms, bathrooms, changerooms, or anywhere else that they can get away to, and last Saturday night they did it on the stage of the Firehall Theatre in a play is called A Particular Class of Women by Janet Feindel, produced by NeverYouMind Productions.

Alone (except for a hundred-or-so audience members), in the dressing room of the Cabaret Circus, each of the eight women in the cast took a turn to tell us stories of the stripping life: what and who they love or hate, how they got started in the business, what things were like in the good old days, where they plan to go next, all while they changed out of street clothes and into skimpy stripper costumes.

Happiness, sadness, jealousy, disappointment, greed, generosity, the mafia, Medicare, financial planning, motherhood, sex (lots of sex) —all was laid bare(!) with uncompromising frankness and contagious humour by eight normal-looking women, in all their messiness and glory.

If this is what you get when you take off the usual filter of the male gaze—then I want more.

A Particular Class of Women has closed at the Firehall, but you can catch it soon at these venues:

Presentation House in North Van from Feb 18 to 23

Inlet Theatre in Port Moody from March 6 to March 8