KOOKAMONGA FALLS

Kookamonga Falls, the latest bit of looniness from Danse Macabre Theatrics, is funny most of the time, silly almost all of the time, and over the top—and frightfully artful—practically every minute. Written by Todd Miller, directed by Michele Schlossberg, designed by Frank Cwiklik, Ian W. Hill and Youthquake!, and performed by Schlossberg, Hill, Bryan Enk, Josh Mertz, Moira Stone, and Peter B. Brown, it's irreverent satire-parody-kitsch, served up by masters.

The idea of the evening surrounding Kookamonga Falls is that, as we enter The Red Room Theatre, we have passed through a time warp and suddenly find ourselves in a cheesy TV studio in the cheesy 1970s. Here we witness a demented children's cartoon called "America 2.0," performed by The Ratzenkatz Puppets! (actually Hill and Berit Johnson, kneeling behind a couple of crates holding up paper cutouts). Next, warmup guy Jimmy Hooler (Josh Mertz) turns up with authentically awful patter to get us in the mood for the soap opera to follow. (Mertz is quick on the draw with clever ad libs as he chats with the audience.)

The main event is the "TV serial" "Kookamonga Falls," narrated by Hill at his smarmy, knowing best. The story this week is about Dr. Peter Von Hackemore and his evil twin, Rudolph. Rudolph, who is supposed dead, disguises himself as a female heart surgeon in order to win back his former lover, Dr. Ilse Gruenwald, who is currently Peter's girl. Meanwhile, a Mysterious Woman complicates matters, as does the curse of the dark, gorilla-infested forest conveniently located nearby.

I told you it was silly. The weakness of Miller's concoction is that it never feels like the soap operas it's supposed to be parodying; it feels, instead, like another bad Ed Wood script (cf. The Fugitive Girls, the last DMT show). That said, it's still good fun, especially whenever Hill is on stage. (What other narrator would turn up on Dr. Hackemore's bed—in the lotus position—eating from a box of cereal?) Schlossberg is appropriately shadowy as the Mysterious Woman and  Peter B. Brown is appropriately cardboard as the "good" Dr. Hackemore. Moira Stone and Bryan Enk are less consistently hilarious as Ilse and Rudolph, which may be due to the writing.

The program--a faux TV Guide from the period--is a masterpiece.  (reviewed on May 11, 2002)