KINK SHAME:
AN ENTERTAINMENT FOR THE MASSES
In North Hollywood, the audience’s senses were assaulted, mainly by each other, in the reception room before we even got into the theater for the return of Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group‘s signature production Urban Death, a cornucopia of short, and I mean brief, minutes-long scenes of the grotesque, bizarre, and horrible displayed by a cast of ten people. Draped mostly in what I would describe as trash-bag decor, my initial experience of the lobby was akin to having accidentally disturbed the dwelling of a squatter rather than attending a theater. I may have been concerned about the horror that lay ahead, but I was more worried about the financial viability of the theater. But looks can be deceiving, and the scrappy production quality here is no doubt devised out of budgetary constraints. This prepared me for the stacked seats in the darkly lit, tightly packed theater, where the joy of intimate communal experience continued before the lights even went down.
The opening started with a single man furiously masturbating a fake penis and spilling semen over the audience. Accompanied by Joseph Bishara‘s heavy-handed score, the sequences continued: darkness, lights up, action, lights out, and repeat. What actually stood out were the more light-hearted vignettes as opposed to the more hideous. Scenes of dudes comparing dick sizes ended with one cracking open his waistband to reveal a strategically placed light, insinuating his possession of impressive manhood. The response from his fellow actor was a delicious mixture of envy and homoerotic desire, a scene which thrived. This is, of course, is interlaced with other displays of homoerotic acts.
But I wondered: does homoerotic fetishism as part of a horror show blatantly suggest that homosexual acts are something grotesque? By the same token, several scenes also exploit mental and physical handicaps as shocking subjects (I wondered what the two mobility-disabled patrons thought about this aspect of the show). There are also plenty of females as the subject of lust murder, and there was a particularly grotesque scene of a geriatric rape that was disturbingly distasteful. Forget nuance; the creators or asking us to buy into our societal fears of the strange and the weak being preyed upon. I suppose creators Zombie Joe and Jana Wimer are saying that it’s all fair game.
But it does seem a bit outdated, making the whole experience more tedious than terrifying. In this day and age of the internet, the shock value is not the same as when Urban Death was conceived 20 years ago. Indeed, most of the scenes are not beyond something a teenager would have access to at the click of a button (I guess that’s why there was overtly supportive cheering instead of stunned silence from the crowd). Perhaps that says more about the state of society — numbed to the point that the novelty wears off — but that is the media consumption environment we live in today. Thus, most scenes had the audience roaring in laughter instead of being overwhelmed into apprehensive silence, Sadly, it robbed from the rest of us any sense of uneasiness or reflection that can take place after each creepy image.
Under Denise Devin‘s direction, there is no shortage of the terrific actors being crass, fecal, and/or naked in very compromised positions (Elijah Cunnally, Andrew Dippe, Daisy Donohue, Joe Filippone, Jonica Patella, Elif Savas, Nick Salas and Jennie Tuliao). So, you still get flashes of light revealing the sudden, unexpected appearance and then disappearance of menacing figures standing right in front of you; chilling sounds of unknown creatures moving around the room in absolute darkness; and plenty of pitiless depictions of gruesome demises, actual and impending. Virgins to Urban Death may have the thrill of a lifetime (and DO NOT FORGET TO TAKE AN EDIBLE), but with a lack of narrative substance and DIY production value, the takeaway is more like watching kids playing pretend than a genuine theatrical thrill.
photos by Zombie Joe
Urban Death
Haunted Theatre Attraction
Zombie Joe’s Underground, 4850 Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood
Fri and Sat at 8:30 and 10:30
graphic content, trigger warnings, and full nudity; ages 17+
for tickets ($20), visit Zombie Tickets (tickets $25 at the door)
for more info, visit Urban Death
Coming up: two extreme (18+) events, Mother and The Bogeyman
