Sunday, July 24, 2011

Jason goes to the Hypnodrome to see VICE PALACE

The Thrillpeddlers' are now down to their final weekend of their latest outrageous Cockettes musical, and I'm so glad I managed to make time for it.

Based on Poe's The Masque of the Red Death, but spiked with a huge dose of outrageousness, it's a musical revue that takes place in the mansion of Divina. While a plague sweeps the city (there's blood on the piazza), Divina invites all her beautiful, intelligent, trendy friends to her sealed mansion, where they can ride out the plague in safety. To amuse them, she has a series of colored rooms--yellow, green, white, blue, purple...but not red! There she and her staff put on a series of amusing diversions. One esteemed guest is the famed filmmaker Federico Fellatio. He has a grand dream to film real life, which to him means the plague. So to counteract the seduction of his camera, Divina's diversions get increasingly outrageous, up to sci-fi number "A Crab on Uranus (Means You're Loved)," to "Just a Lonely Little Turd," and Federico's own production of "Flesh Ballet." Oh yes, there's nudity (although maybe not quite as much as some previous shows), but mostly it's about the outrageous, hilarious music, ranging from "No-Nose Nanook" to "Song of Abdul the Camel Trainer" (A dromedary camel has one hump / While a bactrian camel has two)

A hilarious, outrageous night. I'm so glad I caught this while I could. They did tape the performance, so that might be available sometime soon, no promises. But I can say that their Shocktoberfest (#13!) is coming up in a couple of months. They'll be doing Fear Over Frisco, with plays by the Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller! I can't wait!

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