New play captures life as a lap dancer in Celtic Tiger Ireland
MIRJANA Rendulic’s play, Broken Promise Land, a fictionalised account of her life as a lap dancer in Ireland, opened last week in the TheatreUpstairs. Rendulic says the one-woman show, directed by Aoife Spillane-Hinks, is not about victims, but about choices. “It’s about lap dancing and the immigrant experience, but it’s also about a girl growing up. She’s not a tragic martyr, she’s just a girl with a mission.”
Rendulic came to Ireland from Croatia in 2003. To pay college fees of €10,000, she became a lap dancer. When a friend read what she had written about her experiences, he put her in contact with Hinks. “I was really intrigued by people talking about immigrants in Ireland,” Hinks says, “because I am the descendant of people who left Ireland and worked as servants in Boston. I was fascinated by how lap dancers were seen here as sainted symbols of exploitation. I loved that this character was a spunky young woman who hadn’t been tricked or forced.” Some people will bristle at lap dancing being presented subjectively. “Theatre changes the world by humanising people we don’t ordinarily hear from. You spend an hour with this character and you go ‘I know a bit more about the world, and her journey to find a place in it’.”
Mirjana picked fruit and worked as a porter, receptionist and sales rep before answering an advert for lap dancers. Was it like any other job? “A lot more fun,” she says. “When I started, I didn’t want to be judged. But I met girls who were fully confident and open about what they did.” She doesn’t understand why it is taboo. “I was always asked ‘why are you doing it?’ Well, why are you a waitress?’ Of course, there are bad places, bad clubs, but there are bad corporations, bad restaurants.”
Far from being sleazy criminals, the club owners had rules to ensure no-one was exploited. Tokens were exchanged instead of cash, to limit physical contact with the customers. The venue kept 50% of the takings. If the lap dancers were late, chewed gum, drunk or danced too close to customers, they were deducted tokens or sent home.
In the early days, when lap dancing was new to Ireland, the girls weren’t allowed to go home alone. “We had to get a taxi together. We couldn’t just meet up with someone later and go for a drink. It was for our safety, but it stopped the girls from being normal,” Rendulic says.
Higher-end clubs have a madam to check hair and nails. “It helps to invest in yourself. When you look good, you feel good. But most of us did not spend a great deal of time getting ready. Just shower, put on a dress, a little mascara, and off you go,” Rendulic says.
Customers varied, from “lonely people, people wanting a night out with a difference, or people who just wanted to get away from noisy bars. Sometimes, men bought their girlfriend a dance, as she had always wanted one,” Rendulic says. The customer’s choice of girl varied. “Men didn’t always want the pretty girl. Sometimes, they wanted the big girl or a girl who might like them, too.” When it wasn’t busy, the girls would sit, drink, do each other’s hair and teach each other routines. Many of them lived together and helped each other stay focussed on why they were doing it. “We become a sort of family. It’s quite sad to see a good friend go back home. Just like being involved in a play in a theatre,” Rendulic says.
That’s not the only similarity between lap dancing and playwriting. Lap dancing could be competitive and cliquey. “Then, there’s the power of the managers. They can fire you, or be in favour of someone else. Set one girl up with more dances, so that she can make the money,” she says.
There were nights when customers made the lap dancers long for the anonymity of the girl behind the bar. But Rendulic does not believe that lap dancers should be ashamed of what they do, nor that they are being exploited. “I mostly met gorgeous girls with great personalities. And wearing a lovely dress, being all done up, and being given compliments by customers was nice.”
Rendulic wrote Broken Promise Land for immigrants, people whose passports were of no use. “I wanted to look at what that does to your sense of the possible — your self-esteem, when so much of your time and energy is spent on questions other people don’t have to consider.”
Would she recommend lap dancing? “Only if I knew that a particular person had a good head on their shoulders. The job requires not just being fit, but also being mentally clued-in. It is not a job to stay long in. Most girls did dancing for a certain period, but had other plans and goals. So for girls who have a balance and know when to stop, I would.”
*Broken Promise Land runs at Theatre Upstairs (above Lanigan’s Bar on Eden Quay, Dublin) until Mar 16, daily, 1pm, and 7pm
