Kunst Ist Scheisse

unst ist Scheisse is a cabaret presented by three girls from “The Caravan of Love.” Initially asked to locate and poke your spleen, the gland of desire, this show continues to push as many of your lust-buttons as possible. I, the one female in the room, am seated between three tittering lads and a lightly salivating gentleman – welcome to the grubby, guilty and sweaty act of voyeurism. “We bring kunst, and lots of it!” these corporeally unrefined creatures yelp. I bet you do.

The ensemble proceed to put forward some truly abysmal acts: ‘The Virgin’, for example, consists of the uncoordinated blonde pulling confetti out of her crotch before revealing a two-foot material made phallus. Or is it a tampon? It is unclear. The saving grace is Madame Eva, the impossibly buxom red-head. Her velvety and alluring voice, in song or speech, sets her out as the real talent, the diamond in this rough-hewn trio.

As the show creeps on it becomes increasingly clear that these clumsy, creased and poorly co-ordinated ladies have an agenda. They encourage judgment, heckling even – the girls give popcorn to their punters, to be thrown when hackneyed pop-culture references cropped up; they perform a reverse strip-tease, lasciviously yanking on socks, scarves and anoraks. Is this two fingers up in the face of the honed and toned burlesque act? Indeed it is. The girls are bored and the fishnets are torn – and therein lies the revolution. I spy post-feminism.

Kunst ist Scheisse ist scheisse, but potentially brilliant scheisse; it’s kitsch, it’s awful, it’s clever.