The big revamping of the Chippendales show at The Rio a few years ago extends all the way out to the front door of the theater, with a groovy lounge and restroom areas fronting the facility. It’s all done in glowing blues and purples with cushy seating areas and a big bar designed, mostly, to eliminate whatever inhibitions the female audience members may have left before going into the actual showroom.

Once you’ve taken your seat in the big black box of a room you have two basic choices: try to scream louder and make more of a spectacle of yourself than the women who stopped at the bar or sit quietly and be amused by same. I chose the latter option, for the record.

I mention this, not as an indictment against the people in attendance, but rather as a cautionary tale for anyone with an overdeveloped sense of propriety and decorum. Granted, if you are one of those people you probably wouldn’t be coming to see Chippendales in the first place but just in case you feel obligated because Linda in accounting wants to have her bachelorette party there, you should just accept the fact that you’re going to be shocked by the behavior of the other women around you.

Because ultimately, the Chippendales dancers want you to be shocking. The rules of social engagement officially stop at the doors to the theater and this becomes the ultimate testing ground for the city’s catch phrase, redone for these purposes as “What happens in the Chippendales showroom stays in the Chippendales showroom.”

The updated show features lots of special effects, some high-tech staging, loud (really loud) music, evocative fantasy fulfillment sketches (construction workers, cowboys, etc.), and fairly decent choreography that most of the guys keep up with if not necessarily excel at. There are a couple of honest to g-string dancers tucked in and amongst the beefcake and these guys were razor sharp in their execution of the dance moves.

But you don’t care about all that. You just want to know if the guys are hot and how much of their clothes they take off. The answers: yeah and a lot, respectively. There’s someone for just about every taste, from the Latin lover to the long-haired rocker, so long as perfectly toned and impossibly handsome are the base lines from which you are starting.

There is a certain amount of over-processed rigidity in the show’s structure.

Wait. Can I say rigidity in a review of Chippendales?

Everything seems very carefully timed and placed, essentially eliminating the “anything can happen” vibe a real strip show should have. The similarly low-body-fat dancers at “Thunder from Down Under” seem to have a more raucous, good humor about the whole thing but with that you have to trade off better production values and overall execution so it’s up to you.

By the way, men are allowed in the audience but you’re going to be outnumbered. I was one of four sets of XY chromosomes in attendance with a couple of miserable looking husbands or boyfriends and another similarly bemused reviewer who had obviously drawn the same short stick I had.

Wait. Can I say short stick in a review of the Chippendales?

So ladies, this is all about you. Go, enjoy, be crazy, and then return to your mates with a wide Cheshire grin on your face while refusing to answer any questions. Remember – it stays in the Chippendales theater.