The Merkin Sisters (Stéphanie Morin-Robert and Ingrid Hansen), Canada’s self-proclaimed “Hairiest Sweethearts,” return with more gynocentric performance art that’s guaranteed to leave you in stitches, or at least stunned silence.
Their act, which merges verbal nonsense with squirm-inducing physical comedy, exists at the intersection of slapstick clowning and serious modern dance; if Pina Bausch had choreographed the Blue Man Group, it might look like this.
The pair interact with the audience like android explorers from an alien dimension, and their buffoonish ballet recalls Martin Short’s synchronized swimming SNL skit. And we haven’t even talked about their eponymous ginger groin accessories, which are matched by disturbingly manly prosthetic pecs.
If you have a taste for transgressive theater, the Merkin Sisters have a unique style of “art” that includes copulating fabric colons that birth to gelatinous blobs; duck hand-puppets that mother mewling milk-spewing pacifiers; and a hairy vaping vagina (that last one would be sure to give DeSantis the vapors).
A repeated gag involving audience-submitted suggestions started to feel like filler, and the finale — a puppet routine set to a Shirley Gnome song from their debut album — seems like an oddly tame climax after this orgy of outrageousness.
There’s probably an important point being made about toxic masculinity or gendered beauty standards, but I was too busy chortling to pinpoint exactly what it is. Although some of their bits pushed my admittedly blurry boundaries, I enjoyed the Merkin Sisters’ latest lunacy even better than their last time around.
Lowndes Shakespeare Center
The Merkin Sisters: Deux
Stephanie Morin-Robert
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This article appears in Summer Guide 2023.