Soiree DADA: Blinde Esel Hopse

DADA DAY CAMP The white-faced cast of Soiree creates a little Duchamp of horrors.

One of WNEP’s clownlike Dada creatures is in the middle of an emotional monologue when suddenly his fellows surround him, making noise, shouting, singing and generally drowning him out. The storyteller soldiers on through the distraction until he can’t take it anymore, shouting, “I am having a poignant moment here!”

Good luck with that, we think. There’s poignancy in the latest Soiree DADA; it’s just not in Hallmark-card form. These Dadaists will move you, but they’re not going to be mushy about it.

The latest edition of WNEP’s nonsense cabaret, sprung from the confines of its shoeboxlike former spaces, ups the ante for its stay at the Cultural Center with a cast of 11 white-faced, questionably accented Dadaists, combining the purposely irrational, logic-rejecting anti-aesthetics of Dada practitioners Tristan Tzara and George Grosz with elements of vaudeville (unlike the Dadaists of old, this group isn’t averse to actually entertaining us).

Hall and his cast take us on one daft roller-coaster ride, careening from the sublimely silly (the petulant Dadaists fight over their belongings like toddlers) to that aforementioned prickly poignancy—witness Jen Ellison’s aggressive, desperately powerful, climactic counting piece. Those allergic to audience participation should find other plans, but a little harmless “in your face” is a small price to pay for some darn good “in your brain.” —Kris Vire