But it gets even raunchier - and funnier - when his cute little sidekick Penny (Anais Thomassian) gets carried away with a puppet show that suddenly makes “Avenue Q” seem very Red State. You expect this from a guy in a ruffled-shirt, disco-era tux. The Gazillionaire says it more like Andrew Dice Clay than with newspaper-scrubbed vagueness, as he imagines out loud how much both women and gay men must have enjoyed the show. When the “Mystere” balancing is done, audience members aren’t asked by a scuzzy ringmaster known as The Gazillionaire (Voki Kalfayan) if they are sexually excited. The low-tech set-up has an otherworldly charm, thanks to outside light filtering through stained glass in the big top, which is better known in Europe as a Spiegeltent. Not so much the act itself though, like a proud papa, producer Ross Mollison claimed opening night that the duo billed as Slava and Vanya twist themselves into more difficult positions than the others.īut everyone notices that “Absinthe” acts perform in the round on a 9-foot disc of a stage, surrounded by an audience on folding chairs. The two sculpted dudes who do the hand-balancing, manipulating themselves into muscle-bulging, gravity-defying positions? Seen it in “Mystere,” have you? Or maybe even “V - The Ultimate Variety Show”?īut it’s different here. To describe much of what happens on the tiny stage of “Absinthe” won’t sound so different for folks who have seen a few shows around town.