The Macabaret!

A cabaret of the macabre.
December 8, 200 at Load OF Fun

Review by Dan Conrad:

"What is the greatest fear? Fear of the unexpected, fear of transgression or personal violation, fear of unpleasant experiences, fear of death? Almost all these were present, but the greatest real fear was the frightful cold of the unheated showroom at Load of Fun Galleries, but an astonishing number of attendees managed to stick it out to the end, as their extremities slowly numbed away, and thought of a warm bed distracted from the mysteriously intriguing performances.

Although the theme of the evening was the MC's repeated challenge to "take us beyond the curtain of dark", the first act set forth to dispel fear. Three extraterrestrial-appearing female figures calling themselves "Sfear" (Bonnie Jones, Lauren Bender and Megan McShea) emerged from the glassed-in chamber in the corner of the showroom. High collars covered with the aluminum foil of schizophrenia were adorned with colorful curling plastic straws serving as antennae. Lauren used a portable body scanner (toy walkie-talkie) which she vocally beeped in a satisfying way while testing the fear level of observers clustered around their improvised treatment center, into which the selected subject was taken. He was questioned about his fears, and reassured that these would be allayed by wearing grotesque little finger puppets on all ten fingers while looking at a computer projection of his fear messages, and other seemingly clinical administrations. After he was declared cleared to his fears, another subject was selected and treated, with variations due to the different age, gender, experience, and, of course, fear level, of the subject.

I often take the world quite literally, and with my age, gender, and experience, I do not feel that I struggle with walls of fear or anxiety as I may have in the past, so I stepped back from this farcical parody while it was happening. But the images stuck with me, and by the next day I realized that this was real theater about a largely unaddressed part of daily life for large number of people, the oddly benign effort of the artists acting on their "subjects" to allay fear extended to everyone in the audience, and actually worked.

A collaboration between Dan Breen and Sarah Milinsky almost followed immediately afterwards, but the once-cued videotape rewound by accident somehow so the gallant audience sat in the chilly dark apparently being amused by sheer improbability of the situation, trusting that someone knew what would happen next. Soon enough the genre of horror film took its rightful place at Macabaret. Scenes of a Baliwood frightfest, edited together by Sarah Milinsky, eventually flashed on the screen showing the inevitable debonair male lead, singing his love to the innocent beauty, dancing ensues, and an embrace, and our trusted hero sneers uncharacteristically and suddenly morphs into a cobra – his eyes turning into the spots under the cobra's hood. The damsel is in a swoon of love and does not notice the large viper climbing her thigh…. Then we see the morph again, and again…. after all it is pretty cool! We all laugh – but it IS scary! And the sound by Dan Breen was strange but strangely appropriate. I was later informed that it was music from the movie played backwards.

The movie ended and some lights were turned on, audience began to talk, but someone with a microphone broke in. Who gave this guy a mic? He was up on the half-floor, a kind of balcony at the back of the showroom so I couldn't see him. He started to tell a story, but it was sort of like overhearing someone talking too loud in the next booth at a small restaurant where you would rather have your own conversation, but you can't help listening in. Eventually I realized that is was a planned performance by Kyle Jakubowski.

Then with flourish and mystique the MC, Ric Royer, announced the Crystal Coven!, whose presentation was initiated by another video. This one showed simply a middle-aged woman in close-up sitting at a table with her eyes closed, appearing quite average American except for meditative affectation. Then it appeared that a large crystal skull was on the table in front of her, which she touched lightly, and then she began to speak of the message of the skull and peace and such. It had the tone of a séance. Soon the Coven appeared with head gear painted with color and linear shapes. They reminded me of Navajo Kiva dancers. The had a skull, though not crystal, which they appeared to give reverence to while the film played. Amen.

The final act sprang forth from the electronic tabletop spread of G Lucas Crane. I enjoyed the synthetic sound mass, but not being a connoisseur of electronic music, I perceived it as another pretty good improvisation without special or exceptional qualities. Just as it appeared that he was considering how to move into a final setting to finish, or perhaps a gathering of energy for a restarting, our trusty MC, Ric, imposed on the act a as if to tell the performer to get off the stump and make a show of it. Ric devolved the act into raucous screaming, mic distorted through massive amplification. The steadfastness of the performer was all that indicated that perhaps this turn of events was planned. After a period of this the act ended, but not before the ghost of a crazed man dressed in grocery bags was summoned from beyond the curtain of dark.
He was exorcised, we went home frozen."