Three giant turning screens in primary colors allow the stage to become the Kirche (church) or the Küche (kitchen) while the gigantic “daisy of daytime” and “moon-vines” mark the hour. Miss Rose. an organist; the First Lutheran Minister of the Island of Staten, known as “Papa;” the ninety-year-old and pregnant Fraulein Haussmitzenschlogger; the adult “Kinder” lewdly dressed as children; and “The Man” (a blond young hustler in leather pants. and self-proclaimed descendant of “the old kings of Ireland”) populate this bizarre and bawdy play written in the style of the theater of the ridiculous. With its vaudevillian humor, cartoon sets and characters, ribald takes on religion and marriage, and sentimental Irish ballads, this is one of Williams’ more chaotic mixtures of the comic and the dreadful. Slapstick and brutality intertwine to create a breakthrough piece of performance art.
