There are two kinds of plays in the world that we take great interest in watching: The ones that make us Google things and the ones that “print” something in our head like they were tattooed onto our cerebellum. For the first part without “Cabaret de Profundis” we would have never gotten to Google Artemisia of Halicarnassus who is like a feminist icon version of Leonidas. Also without that same show we would have the word Brusband (a brother husband) permanently etched into our brains where we can’t get it out. So thank you for giving us something to latch on to in this otherwise fun and lighthearted show.

This play was brought into being by Brian Colonna, Erik Edborg, Erin Rollman, Hannah Duggan, Nathan Hall, Samantha Schmitz.

New Rule: Everyone doing digital theatre must now tape a go pro to their foreheads. Sometimes people are afraid to show the empty space that they’re currently in but this production benefited from showing off the empty audience space around them. Don’t be afraid of all that space you can move around in guys. I must applaud their use of coverage from about a hundred cameras that caught everything. Even a wine camera that Dana found particularly hilarious. Thanks to them I now can say I know what it’s like to be on the business end of someone crying me a river.

I don’t know that we one hundred percent connected to this style of crazy cabaret action. However, there was so much going on that I don’t think many people could. In my mind I think that it was a lot like one of those very decadent sculptural wedding cakes: I know that the person making it is insanely talented, I know that this is most likely the best version of this I have ever seen, but it was all a bit too rich for my taste. I think it’s a case of there being too much of everything and if the creators went in and trimmed a few things out I’d be able to dig in.

If you cut through a few of the layers you get to this idea that grief is really different for everyone else. This year has seen a lot of grief and a lot of us choosing to process that grief differently. No one really wants to know how to go through grief because we don’t ever really want to feel it. This past year we’ve even been grieving live theatre. It’s great that there are shows out there showing us a fun way to miss live theatre and doing it in style. Great job everyone!

In a weird way this was a very fun show. We can’t put our finger on exactly what makes it fun but just like the aforementioned cake wherever we do is tasty. There’s some kind of secret ingredient that we just love but can’t identify. We really hope they invite us over for another show just so that we can try to find it again. However with people as talented as this I don’t know they won’t have something even more crazy next time.

Ricky and Dana Young-Howze January 15th 2021 The Young-Howze Theater Journal