Ofelia Saenz, Staff Writer
Audiences still have one weekend left to catch the Garage Theatre’s latest show, White Trash Catholic Circus, and oh, what a sin it would be to miss.
Written by actress/writer Amy-Louise Sebelius, the show features Sebelius and a rambunctiously entertaining supporting cast in a collection of vignettes based on Sebelius’ life.
True to the doctrine of her venue (the Garage Theatre’s mission statement proclaims the organization to be a collaborative ensemble which strives to take artistic risks, and uncover social and human truths), Sebelius, along with director Rory Cowan, has created a spectacle performance that breaks almost as many rules as the show’s dissenting protagonist.
Actors start the show with the wheel of (mis)fortune and, with the help of a little audience participation, leave the direction of the night’s performance to chance–ensuring that, for both actors and audience, every evening is a new and outrageous experience.
Through stories of too many drinks, too many men, and, generally speaking, too many bad choices, we learn that the differences between the dark-curtained confessional of Sebelius’ childhood Catholicism and her theatrical purging are not just the absence of privacy and sanctity; these cathartic tales of love, sex, violence, drugs, innocence, naiveté and enlightenment are no supplication for judgment and mercy, but rather an expression of understanding.
Brave as the trapeze artist about to jump and often scary as the cruel smiles of the clowns holding the net far below, White Trash Catholic Circus is sure to send the audience away with a sense that life is many things, not the least of which, of course–the greatest show on Earth.
The Garage Theatre is located at 251 East Seventh Street in downtown Long Beach. Show times are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 13 and 14. For more information, call (562) 433-8337.
