‘Moral Grey Area’

A gold lam»-splashed, mascara-smeared, pasty-plastered cacophony of carnal delights, “Lighthouse Eternal” – the late-night show now running at the Shelterbelt Theatre – is a must-see for all but the feint of heart.

It’s staged by neo-burlesque queen Katherine Neary and her Perforated Productions, the company that also houses the Hot Tail Honeys, a retro girly show, and the Incandescent Circulists, an otherworldly circus troupe. They’ve bounced from blowsy bar to dirty dive in a quest to redefine anachronistic art forms for a new generation of now-avid audiences.

Hold on. That’s not entirely true. Not everyone, it seems, is in agreement on that. Less avid were the goods folks at Ironwood Country Club (what were they thinking?) when they pulled the curtain down down down when the costumes came off off off in what was the company’s only case of coitus interruptus.

Sure, it’s amoral. Sure, it’s blood-drenched. And sure, there are ta-ta’s ‘til Tuesday in this one. But magnificent production values and an eye to a smart, sophisticated stylishness allows “Lighthouse Eternal” to transcend mere naughtiness.

“It’s a love story across time about people who lie in that moral grey area,” Neary explained when cast, crew and minglers coagulated in a post-show sidewalk soiree as midnight tolled on California Street. “They’re not necessarily good people but, like a lot of us, they don’t deserve to be in hell, either.”

A fixture of late night stages for a decade now, the elbow-thrower on the roller derby circuit is that rarest of creatures – a super-vixen who is as scintillating as she is oddly androgynous. Warned of my intent to print the preceding observation, Neary nodded her approval and purred, “I’m the luckiest person on Earth – a drag queen born in the body of a woman.”

“Lighthouse Eternal,” with no spoken words, is constructed like a silent movie. An oversized screen rolls scratchy, jittery credits before revealing off-stage action throughout the evening.

As a reward for inventing a pleasure inducing device – think of the Orgasmatron in “Sleepers” – a scientist is dragged from his laboratory by the proverbial angry mob. Here’s where the enigmatic Cross (that’s right, just “Cross”) comes in. His clever video montages pick up where the on-stage action ends. The characters exit only to reappear on the giant screen so that a torch-lit lynching – left to our imaginations on other stages – unfolds in glorious black and white.

Damned to roam the ethers of time to reunite with his lost love (Chelsea Long), the mad doctor (Jeremy Johnson) encounters future generations and their pursuit of the pleasure principle. From a sizzling flapper-era fan dance scene to a hilarious 1960s art house porn set to a 1980s Tijuana nip and tuck job that leaves a nude woman mummified in Saran wrap, the spectral wanderer is frustrated in his attempts to find a worthy reincarnation for the heart-shaped locket of his sepia-toned sweetie.

“It’s all the good parts of theater with all the boring parts left out,” Neary said of the crisp, 45-minute show. “There’s no waiting around an hour-and-a-half for the fight scene. We go straight to the fight scene.”

Dripping with echoes of German Expressionism, Steampunk and Glam Rock, “Lighthouse Eternal” is a triumph in a category of its own and is as disturbingly marvelous as it is marvelously disturbing.