The Masque of the Red Death is a an interdisciplinary theatre piece created and directed by Stella Kulagowski currently playing at The Assembly Theatre.  At its heart is a cabaret show where each performer represents a Virtue “complementary” to the canonical Seven Deadly Sins that Poe riffed off in his original short story.  Each Virtue is also associated with a colour in the rainbow Pride flag.

L to R back row: Rosalind Saunders, Parham Rownaghi, Rachel Manson, Joy Thompson, Rennaldo Quinicot
Middle: Bryna Bella, Eli Holliday
Front: Nailah Renuka, Stella Kulagowski

In a further parallel to the the Poe story it’s set in the secure compound of a billionaire tech-bro; Darius Prospero, where he is holed up with his super-rich pals as the world literally burns around them.  Environmental collapse is the new Plague.  Our cabaret performers have been hired at the instigation of Prospero’s assistant Ariadne; herself a former cabaret performer, to provide his paying guests with entertainment.

It doesn’t quite gel.  Lurid video of environmental disaster and slides showing massive inequity in wealth distribution play; sometimes during the cabaret acts.  The performers display “survivor guilt”over their friends and family not inside the bunker.  Prospero is a combination of revoltingly entitled rich dude and would be arts patron (at times he sounds like a bureaucrat for an arts council).  But nothing explains why a bunch of low rent queer cabaret artists would be invited to form the entertainment for the surviving super-rich.  Prospero could afford to hire Taylor Swift or Cirque du Soleil so why does he settle for a tap dancing trombonist and their friends?

It feels like the creators wanted to do their Sin/Virtue themed queer cabaret and needed a narrative frame for it.  They probably also wanted to make a series of points about the world going to Hell in a hand basket though I’m not sure the typical indie theatre goer needs much reminding.  But anyway, back to the plot.

Guilt overwhelms the performers as they reflect on their friends and family abandoned in the “real world” and in true soggy liberal style they decide to use their show to reform the bougies and persuade them to share their largesse with the unwashed masses.  If that fails they will kill them (not so woolly though they angst a lot about it) and take over the compound with its armed guards!  So the show goes from fairly gentle satire to more disturbing material and Prospero gets first uncomfortable and then angry and finally violent.  Nobody is converted and the performers slip poison to Ariadne and Prospero.  How else it all works out we never find out.

The thing is the cabaret itself is pretty good on its own terms.  Some acts will appeal to some people more than others.  I’m not a huge fan of tap dancing but YMMV.  There’s some good cabaret style singing; especially from Joy Thompson as Community.  There’s some very accomplished acrobatics (especially given the tiny space) from Nailah Renuka as Tolerance.  Stella Kulagowski’s burlesque sequence, played over video of child labour and industrial pollution, is quite striking and provocative.  Rennaldo Quinicot as Pride does a high energy, rather violent rap/hip hop number with a techie piñata that finally drives Prospero over the edge.  Their are also contributions; individually and severally, from Eli Holliday as Love, Rosalind Saunders as Joy and Bryna Bella as Generosity,  As a “revue” it works.

In the “frame” Parham Rownaghi portrays an almost tolerable Darius Prospero.  The balance between truly revolting entitlement and wanting to appear, at least to some extent, like a human being is skilfully navigated.  Rachel Manson plays the ambiguous Ariadne who ultimately sides with money rather than her old friends and the audience (we are also the “bunker audience”) vote on her fate is unanimously for the chop.  So it goes.

All in all, The Masque of the Red Death is an interesting idea.  The execution is pretty good given it’s a low budget show in a low budget space but the concept just doesn’t quite work for me.  It plays at The Assembly Theatre until April 12th.

Photo credit: Hayley Hruska