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(Spiegelworld)
Reviewed By Li Cornfeld
August 8, 2008
With its glitzy burlesque, stunning acrobatics, bawdy jokes, and graying audience, Absinthe, the latest offering at South Street Seaport’s Speigelworld tent, makes for a bizarre mish-mash of an extravaganza. If New York’s burgeoning downtown burlesque scene gained an advertising budget that allowed it to attract a Bridge and Tunnel crowd, or if Cirque du Soleil forsook its insistence on aesthete seriousness for a self-effacing sense of humor, the result might look something like Absinthe.
But not quite. The contradictions that make up Absinthe – intimate grandeur, grotesque athleticism, upscale striptease – would be highly difficult to replicate under different circumstances. As it is, the set-up often feels strained: the Gazillionare, who plays filthy rich ring leader of the sketchy circus, and his sweetly off-kilter assistant Penny emcee the production while trying hard to elicit interaction from the audience, with no subject off limits. That the audience is mostly white is a source of much banter; that the audience would perhaps look more at home seeing a tepid spectacle a la Disney on Broadway is hinted at through a recurring slew of curious references to The Lion King.
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