Review: In seductive ‘Pompeii,' pleasure masks impending doom

San Francisco Chronicle​

20 hours ago

In a shadowy industrial venue, Detour Productions cofounder Eric Garcia took the stage wearing black sequined lederhosen and laid out ground rules for the immersive theater company's new show, 'Pompeii.'
The third floor of the old brick and steel building on 9th Street now known as Storek was for the purposes of the evening, Garcia explained, now the Kit Kat Club. Beneath us was the mezzanine and the Fandango Ballroom, and beneath that, in the basement, was Fernando's Hideaway. We were free to roam these mysterious spaces for the next two and a half hours, but not to touch anyone 'unless there is a crystal-clear invitation.'
In 'Pompeii,' which I saw Saturday, Aug. 2, and runs through Aug. 17, we find ourselves not in the buried Roman city, but in the world of choreographer and director Bob Fosse. His iconic style is felt everywhere — with its bump and grind, its slithering seduction, its fishnet garter stocking allure. Most of all, we are in the world of the musical 'Cabaret,' where patrons laugh and drink and carouse in seedy sanctuary as fascism bludgeons the windy real world. But Detour's show adds a prophetic metaphoric overlay, which Garcia announced just before drag performer Mudd the Two Spirit strutted on in lace-up platform heels and a rhinestone-studded codpiece as the Kit Kat Club's emcee.
'We have gathered at the mouth of the volcano,' Garcia said. 'The ground is already rumbling and crackling, which can only mean one thing. Something is coming apart. People don't always realize that things are coming apart. But you do.'
Indeed. As I sat at a cocktail table before the show, a fellow patron chatted me up by asking what I thought of the Trump administration's attack on the arts, then told me his friends were talking of fleeing for Europe. A rather privileged response, I commented, before spitting a few epithets at the mention of tech bros and their priorities. Then the dancing and singing (well, lip-synching) began.
'Pompeii' is Detour's third site-specific production, and its largest — 21 performers of glorious physical diversity, ranging from statuesque Quinn Dixon clad in white chiffon as Angelique the angel of death, to the performer known as Glamputee rocking a fringed flapper dress and faux-belting 'When You're Good to Mama' before joining the ensemble on bejeweled crutches. (The artfully flesh-sculpting costumes are by repeat Detour collaborator Abdiel Portalatín Pérez.)
Each performer has a distinct charisma, although pencil-mustachioed Melissa Lewis Wong was particularly magnetic in a scarlet-sequined pantsuit fit for Liberace, slinking through 'Pink Panther' inside a circle of red feathered fans, and serving up some impressive tap dance alongside Lisa Frankenstein's Lola in 'Too Darn Hot.'
Most of the big ensemble numbers take place in the ballroom, where the action can be viewed from above or up-close, and that's where I spent most of the evening, admiring the fun that Garcia and contributing director Chuck Wilt must have had staging 'Caravan' and a can-can fit for the Moulin Rouge. But I was glad I returned to the top floor for 'Don't Rain on My Parade' as delivered by Beef Cakes, who must have some real ballet training — check out that line of tight chaîné turns.
The verdict? 'Very entertaining,' proclaimed my pre-show chatter friend. Whether he quite meant to enhance the immersive irony of the evening, I could not tell. Neither of us said anything about the basement, its wall lined with silver mylar, where music designer re-mixed Kander and Ebb tunes in a low Satanic gurgle, and Anqelique dropped dollar bills that Syd Franz as the 'Chicago' lawyer Billy Flynn lapped up off the concrete floor.
I didn't spend much time in that creepy basement, overwhelmed by the horror, I have to admit. What does that choice say about me? I'm not sure. But I do know Garcia is right: 'Choices have consequences.' At the end of 'Pompeii,' there's no rush of lava, no actual coating of ash. Just the choices we make after we leave the theater — and we better make sure they're ones we can live with as we die.