Sin City

Cabaret Red Light has a very bad influence — the seven deadly deeds.

by Holly Otterbein

[ performing arts ]

The most shocking part of Cabaret Red Light's Gluttony! involves bare breasts and a whole lot of liquid chocolate.

"The common ways in which we entertain ourselves — TV, movies, the Internet — involve sitting in a room by yourself," he says. "Compare that to the licking scene. It's the opposite. It's real people in a room experimenting with themselves and testing out their own limits."

Mixing highbrow concepts with lowbrow entertainment — or, more to the point, sneaking politics and fine art in with the promise of naked girls — is something the troupe has gotten very good at throughout its cabaret performances, each of which takes its inspiration from one of the seven deadly sins. For instance, immediately preceding a '20s-esque strip number in Gluttony!, Gaffney belts a satirical tune that hails oil as a panacea. And pirates in Greed! sing about the many times they've been drunk with God.

"People are much more willing to open up to these ideas, like making fun of the Bible, when it's not a lecture and there's music and dance and burlesque," says Gaffney. "Plus, it's fun. We call ourselves the best musical girlie show in hell, and what would such a show do if not make fun of heaven?"

Gaffney and his gang are also particularly talented at meshing the highly absurd with the sexy. In Gluttony!, Frangiosa dresses up as a giant, unattractive gingerbread man and then proceeds to strip out of the costume — all while being eaten by a 10-foot-tall German woman puppet.

So, naturally, I had to ask Gaffney how this month's show, Lust!, would be any different than the other performances, since they had all been libidinous. He said it'll be the same variety show stuffed with dance, nudity, music and puppet theater, but slightly more perverse.

"Everyone asks me that. They all say that this is the show they've been waiting to see," he says. "Let's just say it involves a cancan show in which the burlesque performers are half-girls, half-carousel-horses. And the subtitle of the show is 'A Tale of Abnormal Childhood Sexual Development and Carousel Rides.' So we're obviously taking it places that even we didn't think we would have before."

(holly.otterbein@citypaper.net)

LUST! Thu., June 25, 7 and 10 p.m., $15, L'Etage, 624 S. Sixth St., 215-592-0656, cabaretredlight.com