After a period of exile from Snowmanlandia, The Caravan of Love returned to perform a show for the folk of a small town entrancing all, especially one young girl.
We begin the show with a description of life in the town by an elderly woman, portrayed by an almost life sized puppet. As she told the tale, the story was played out using shadow puppets on a screen. This was a largely haphazard affair with no attempt to hide the performers, who abruptly threw in new characters and props as they were called upon by the narration. The story introduced the titular Caravan to the town as it arrived to perform for the puzzled yet enthralled town folk.
The punters were then transported into the Snowmanlandian audience in the Caravan watching the show. We were introduced to the women of the Caravan, dressed in cabaret styled corsets and bustles. They spoke with highly comical accents of indeterminate European origin, talking of lust and desire. Some of them provided a bit of back-story but they mostly let their singing and dancing tell the story. Each of these characters had wonderful personas that interacted well with the others.
We took in an entertainment spectacular consisting of group and solo pieces from the ladies. We saw a Hula Hoop Strip, Avant-Garde dancing and a bird based fable. There was an interpretive dance involving a large phallus, a reverse striptease and a haunting rendition of a contemporary song. The girls also stepped from the stage and into the audience to mingle with the people and spread the love.
The performances of the song and dance routines were executed in a hilariously inept manner that was a large component of the show’s humour. Songs and dialogue contained many absurd elements and generous scoops of pop culture references. One of the stories performed contains so many of these references that the audience were invited to participate in a kind of drinking game substituting alcohol with party poppers. Keeping with the sexy European flavour of the show, they peppered the dialogue with lots of random German words as a form of innuendo. They seemed to have a particular fondness for “Kunst Ist…” phrases as they dedicated a couple of segments to them.
When the Caravan eventually departed from the town, the elderly woman reappeared to reminisce about the experience of seeing that show all those years ago, before the ladies hit the stage once more for a last dance and to take their bows. The audience I was a part of had such a great time that they called for an encore. This seemed to throw the girls, but we were treated to a performance of their theme song which set to the tune of “Winter Wonderland” included more innuendo, random German phrases and some sly comments on the artistic community.
This was a silly show that kept the rowdy audience laughing throughout. It’s late time slot ensures that the young and easily offended are unlikely to attend this quite risque performance. It was a wonderfully warped vision of cabaret that doesn’t take itself seriously at all.