Cyclosa Confusa starting Andrew Conner was certainly the strangest and most entertaining show I have seen at the Fringe so far. The show started with the theater in total darkness. A creature enters the theater which has mini LED flashlights on it’s head and hands. It is very tall judging from the lights it projects around the audience. Rushing around, I could hear its joints squeaking. It wondered up and down the isles searching. Mark Baratelli had just entered the theater and ended up sitting alone at a theater left seat.
The tall green creature was on stage and disappeared behind a small white curtain. He pulled out some binoculars and started scanning the audience. He looked right at Mark and lingered. He rushed back out into the audience where Mark was seated and began massaging Marks head. He sprinkled salt on Marks scalp and then put a hard hat on with a rubber hose sticking out of the top. He pulled out a mini hand held drill and pretended to drill into Marks head. The rubber hose acted as a straw with which he sucked marks brains with delight. Even in his embarrassment Mark had the forethought to hand off his camera so Sultana Ali could take some pictures.
Mark was pulled on stage and seated in a metal folding chair with his back to the audience. The Cyclosa, now in a lab coat started running a series of obtuse and humerus tests. If Mark answered correctly he got a happy face mark, if he answered incorrectly the sad face would be checked. Many of the questions were obvious like, 2 + 2 = _____. Then came a difficult question, 3 triangles a circle and another triangle = _____. Mark thought for a moment and said, “4 kisses and a cookie.” That deserved a huge smile face check and the audience roared.
The creature looked through the bag of a woman in the front row and he pulled out an address book. On stage he offered it to Mark as a reward. Mark looked over his shoulder and held up the book smiling with a page open full of contact information. Tisse Mallon took his photo. Mark kept getting a barge of gifts and romantic advances from the Cyclosa.
Mark and a girl picked from the audience then had to perform an operation on a human heart which the Cyclosa had extricated from his tail or butt. As they worked on the heart with their utensils the Cyclosa used a spray bottle to moisten the heart and plate. He was spritzing so much that the two were lost in a cloud of wet mist.
With a series of play cards the Cyclose quickly outlined his back story. His civilization in the center of the Earth had been lost because of a rouge lave flow. He had been spared since he was surfing the lava at the time. He wanted to take Mark to his home. The Cyclosa was in love and I think so was Mark.
In the end the Cyclose offered its heart by unzipping it’s fly and attaching what looked like a clothes line to Marks helmet. The heart was strung on the line with a carabiner and then the line was pulled sending the heart over to Marks face. When the Cyclose wrote on a large card, “Will you come with me?” The audience was shouting at Mark to accept the creatures loving advances. Smitten, Mark accepted.
So much fun! Don’t miss it!
Thursday, May 27th 7:10 PM
Friday, May 28th 11:05 PM
Cyclosa needs to be in the NBA.
He would kill at basketball.