It's hard not to fall in love with Annie Sprinkle, an appealing, courageous performer who combines Gypsy Rose Lee's burlesque with Madonna's sexual exhibitionism and Karen Finley's feminist performance-art activism. After a nine-year absence, which included a bout with breast cancer, the prostitute and porn actor turned activist sex worker, author, performance artist, and sexologist is appearing Off-Broadway in collaboration with multimedia artist and U.C. Santa Cruz professor Elizabeth Stephens. Directed by Neon Weiss, who sits on stage and occasionally comments wryly, and featuring Sheila Malone's feel-good, neo-'60s psychedelic media design/soundscape, this audience-participation multimedia event is part of the Love Art Laboratory, which began with Sprinkle and Stephens' 2004 Collective: Unconscious wedding, at which they made formal vows to become "love art collaborators [and] committed domestic partners."
The format of Exposed, which explores lesbianism, gay rights, artificial insemination, breast cancer, and same-sex marriage, is relaxed. Sprinkle and Stephens discuss how they got together and the project's evolution. Their often-comic repartee is delightful. The ultrafeminine, false-eyelashed Sprinkle, her famous watermelon breasts bursting out of her frilly gown, often finishes the sentences of the easygoing, mischievous, crew-cut, Army-booted Stephens, their voices dancing around each other with the relaxed compatibility of a deeply symbiotic couple. Background videos depict sexual play and a series of brightly hued performance-art weddings. The narrative is punctuated by interactive "experiments": They paint chakras on a nude lab assistant, photograph volunteers' breasts, and present a video collage. Audience members are asked to improvise an artificial-insemination dance.
Despite graphic sexual content, with its cartoonish simulated lesbian sex, the show remains fun and frothy. The one genuinely erotic moment — lights burn red as Stephens rhythmically massages Sprinkle's naked breasts to driving rock 'n' roll — is interrupted by a lump discovery. A graphic breast-cancer photo montage follows, with the wildly costumed pair, heads shaved and Sprinkle's arms dotted with IVs, laughing in death's face. As this legendary envelope-pusher says, "When your cells are under attack, look sassy, make art, and survive."
Presented by and at Collective: Unconscious, 279 Church St., NYC. April 28-May 12. Thu., 7:30 p.m.; Fri., 7:30 and 10 p.m.; Sat., 3 and 7:30 p.m. (212) 352-3101 or (866) 811-4111 or www.theatermania.com.