Freakshow: It’s Okay to Stare.

Circus freakshows have long been fascinating source material
for any sad kid who fancies themselves an outsider. It’s an easy
framing device for observations about “otherness,” or our hypocritical
response to the things we fear, or whatever metaphor can be most
handily applied to a dog-faced woman and a boy with webbed feet. The
quasi-reverence with which playwright Carson Kreitzer approaches her
subjects is familiar, as she sketches a shadowy world full of sacred
monsters in whom humanity and deformity provocatively mingle.

And it’s all a bit much, frankly. At times, Freakshow is an
almost dishy exploration of the backstage world of a traveling freak
show, as characters fall in love and bicker—but Kreitzer’s
language tends toward the flowery, cramming incongruously ornate
phrases into the mouths of her band of outsiders. The effect is to
further distance the audience from characters who already seem
contrived.

To dismiss the show outright as an adolescent romance would be a
grave disservice to Theatre Vertigo’s ensemble, however. Amy Newman
should win a Drammy for her performance here; as “The Woman With No
Arms or Legs,” she’s propped center stage for the entire production,
limbs hidden, by turns generous and peevish, seductive and resigned.
It’s an uncanny, captivating performance, and well worth seeing.
Garland Lyons, too, brings a pitiful bluster to his role as the freak
show’s leader and mastermind, while Kerry Ryan is strikingly good as a
runaway who falls in love with Aquaboy.

The world of Freakshow is a liminal one, ever shifting
between states, in which “freaks” are both born and created, and the
prim dog-faced woman might drop to all fours and howl. This shadowy,
in-between quality is compelling, highlighted by Tom Moorman’s
direction, but it’s overshadowed by Kreitzer’s melodramatic
impulses—the “Pinhead” with the beautiful voice, crooning hymns
in his cage, should’ve gotten the ol’ red pen, as should the more
florid speechifying. All credit for this production’s strengths goes to
the Vertigo ensemble, who do as well as possible by their material.