Evocative strip club drama
CHUCALISSA is the fictional Mississippi Delta town at the centre of Katori Hall’s richly textured and engagingly soapy new drama P-Valley, which begins airing on Tuesday, on 1Magic (DStv Channel 103) at 9.30pm.
The area is more colloquially known as P-Valley because of its strippers, who work at a run-down, flickering-neon club called Pynk.
Hall, an award-winning Memphis playwright, has based this series on a play she wrote that originally spelled out what that “P” stands for.
Some network caution, I suppose, has prevailed and shortened the title – perhaps not so different from the Chucalissa ordinance that keeps the women at Pynk from going topless while they perform in the club.
One of the most striking aspects of the series is how it elevates pole-dancing to a feminist feat of artistry and athleticism. It’s hard work in a place where employment options are few.
P-Valley achieves that rarest of balancing acts: it is a thoughtful immersion into an overlooked culture and community – in this case, the economically strapped, predominantly black “Dirty South” of broken dreams, gospel truths and palpable prejudices. The show excels at both tawdry entertainment and meaningful moments of character study – a reminder that premium cable can toggle between romp and reflection, recalling the better, earlier seasons of HBO’s True Blood, and the stylistic intent of films such as Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow and Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike.
The show begins in the aftermath of Hurricane Drake, which flooded the Houston area and provided a means of escape for a desperate woman who calls herself Autumn (Elarica Johnson). She uses a found ID and lost luggage to get herself to Chucalissa, where she wins an amateur-night dance competition at Pynk, and is soon hired by the club’s dominating, genderfluid owner, Uncle Clifford (Nicco Annan).
Autumn’s beauty and natural ability impresses the other women of Pynk, except for Mercedes (Brandee Evans), the club’s main attraction, who is saving her “stacks” (one stack equals a thousand bucks, if I am correctly absorbing all the many things P-Valley is trying to teach me) to leave Pynk and fulfill her dream of opening a storefront dance school for majorettes.
Story lines abound here, focusing first on the shady deals behind plans
