At first, it seems like it’s going to be a gory skewering of American media and health care (think The Running Man meets Repo: The Genetic Opera, with a dash of Idiocracy) and an early circumcision challenge included some guffaw-inducing Grand Guignol thrills.
However, halfway through, the script takes a harder, even darker turn, and director Robert Cunha’s cast commits with almost terrifying intensity. No matter how absurd the genre-bending twists and turns, nor how insane the situation, they attack their pseudo-Shakespearean text with life-or-death seriousness.
Fair warning: You’ve got to wade through two onstage self-colonoscopies and a Human Centipede-style craniotomy before the anti-climactic pat ending.
There are some wicked ideas in here — I love the implication that Hollywood producers and homicidal extra-terrestrials are pretty much interchangeable — and if you can overlook some clunky execution and overwritten dialogue, this messy but insanely original play should satisfy fans of both splatterpunk and The Twilight Zone.
Lowndes Shakespeare Center
Suture Bowl
Renie and Rob Productions
_____
Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
This article appears in Summer Guide 2023.