Last night, the technicians, administrators and other non-performing workers of Kooza presented, "Le Box", a full-on, no-holds-barred, no-punches-pulled parody of Kooza.
The evening started with a hilarious video presentation of Kooza bloopers, compiled by Ganji, edited by Teign-Teign, and played in a loop on the big screens in the concession area. As expected, alternate reactions of gut-busting laughing and eye-shielding cringing filled the room for this preshow presentation. The good folks at New Belgium, once again, came through as heros by providing SIX kegs of free beer for the festivities.
The animation began with very clever conglomerations of preshow characters, including Phil as a combo handyman/delivery man/maternity nurse, graphically delivering Mathilde's "baby" in the Guy Laliberte's seats.
Andree's very touching turn as the Innocent opened with a kite-flying attempt, only to succeed in shooting a bird with a gun. Bo entered spectacularly, re-invisioning the Trickster as the late Michael Jackson, complete with single white glove.
A pajama-clad Charivari cast slept-walked onto stage, danced the Macarena, and hopped around on inflatable bouncy balls.
Some of the more manlier technicians gave a turn as the contortionists, barely hiding their own frames with their show blacks, and having impossibly skinny foam appendages attached to their arms and legs. It degenerated into a big Twister game, led by Vera on microphone calling the positions in the fashion of her stage management cue-calling.
After a funny, split bowling scene revealed dueling trapeze girls, Matias entered with a flourish and actually performed a jaw-dropping, impressive version of the number. Jessica, still dressed in her Yulia trapeze outfit, remained on the sidelines flirting with and distracting Jimbo as he tried to manipulate the rigging.
Phil and Dominique took to the stage for duo unicycle--or more accurately, duo stationary cycle. Dominique was hilarious as Diana with her ubiquitous book in hand the entire act.
Hand-to-Hand was next featuring Andree and JC in the old Hand-to-Hand costumes, deftly yet ineptly rolling around on the ground and on each other.
The clowns came out for some inappropriate audience interaction. I was especially, and delightfully, disturbed as Marie-France, dressed as my character sat on my lap. Surreal and meta-theatrical.
The last number of the first act of course was High Wire. Two rolling platforms were brought in to represent the upper wire, while the stage itself sufficed as the low wire. Highlights included a round of manly patty-cake and cardboard cutouts of the Spaniards' actual cars representing the bicycles. All the while, Jessica as lead singer danced in the bataclan with possessed abandon. The quartet appropriately took an inappropriate number of bows.
Drew as Heimlos announced a 20 minute beer-drinking intermission.
The second act began with Liz in her turn as the Innocent, summoning the masts to light up. She got the order of the last two wrong, and I'm not sure if it was intended or not, but either way it was very funny.
Crooner began with the cast in makeshift skeleton tights making their entrance and the clowns running out of the trap pursued by a human-sized rat. Mary Manon did a bang-up job singing as Crooner in the bataclan, and the lineup of all-male skellettes featured a lot more skin and diapers than I was expecting from the evening.
The Wheel of Death was brought in, but Jimbo played it solo on a treadmill on casters, thanks in part to Andy and Dylan as not-so-invisible roadies and several failed attempts to throw the jumprope.
JF's hard work practicing on the trailer drum kit paid off, as he performed a flawless drum solo in full rat costume. Michael cut it short by shooting him with a toy gun and finished the solo himself.
After a passage with the Mystere snail playing the pooping rat, Pickpocket began with Collette entering from the trap door in clown hat, purple suit, and bottle of Jager. She brought up Gracie as a "volunteer" having pointless chatter with her, while stealing unseemly objects from her pockets, including a bullet belt, a whip, a gun, and knives. As Gracie was led off the stage, Collette deftly tore off her rip-away clothes, revealing Gracie's underthings.
It was Annie and Phil's turn to play Juggler and Assistant, respectively. The rolling juggling table doubled as a baby carriage that they both doted on from time to time and gave the "baby" a nice nippled bottle of vodka. Annie successfully, and repeatedly, flashed three balls as her major juggling trick. After a few failed attempts at balancing a ball on her head, Phil brought her into the bataclan and nailed the ball there, which the audience witnessed behind the curtain in shadow play. She was then placed on a rolling dolly and bowled over three bowling pins as their finale. During the act, they creatively (if not that successfully) announced that Annie was expecting Phil's baby.
Clown Crown was replaced by a ukulele-wielding Jimbo recreating my performance in the Kooza Cabaret in St. Paul. He lipsynced the second half of Total Eclipse of the Heart, complete with fabric-throwing and empty-seat-surfing. When he got to the stage, Edwin as Criss Angel magically floated out of the trap door to the Mindfreak music. Jimbo screamed at him for interrupting him, making it absolutely clear that what he was holding was MY FIRST UKULELE that I learned to play on. After triumphantly calling Criss Angel a douchebag, he smashed the uke on his back and slid him back into the trap, before cheerily exiting there himself.
Chinese Chairs was next starring Steve and about seven stackable outdoor chairs. It was Aleta's turn to sing quite well in the background during the number. Steve tried in vain to ignore several persistent longe offerings and a human-sized bat. Finally, at his last trick, right on cue, an annoying train sound blew by.
For the Teeterboard finale, the cast came out as cheerleaders, complete with pompoms, attempting small human pyramids and lamely diving onto a mat.
The whole evening was a monumental success. For such a slapdash, crackerjack parody, the organizers, cast and crew did a fantastic job of smoothly, creatively and hilariously recreating the show in their own vision. I was reenergized by the experience and am proud to be a part of such a fun-loving family.
