In the case of this particular German cow, it may seem a case of udder uber alles. But having an extra teat isn't much good if there is no milk flowing and your next destination is the dinner table. In the "kabarett musical fantasy" that makes up the second act of Thrillpeddlers' The Untamed Stage, Bruna Palmeiro is a comic delight as the vaguely melancholy cow who sings that her lot in life is to chew, digest, and poop, with Palmeiro suggesting a kind of Lucille Ball performance of wide-eyed mimicry as the dumb bovine.
Writer-composer Scrumbly Koldewyn certainly isn't playing in a I Love Lucy world, which isn't too surprising for the former member of the Cockettes who has frequently collaborated with Thrillpeddlers. But he still manages to shake up an audience that has already arrived expecting the troupe to go for the shocking. In The German Thing to Do – or How a Cow Changed History, Nazi-like scientists are working on an experiment that goes awry in a way that transforms our poor cow's five udders into a phallic quintet with a new popularity among the citizenry.
In this mad world, the cow's storyline is actually the most rational among the multiple tangents that involve human gender journeys, a pansexual Pandora's Box, and a short film of the kind of psychedelia that might have been shot for a Cockettes show of the early 1970s. The material has its hits and misses, but it provides abundant opportunities for outrage by such Thrillpeddlers regulars as David Bicha, Kim Larsen, Noah Haydon, Andy Wegner, Damien Chacona, Diogo Zavadzki, John Flaw, and Barney Ford (subbing for Steven Satyricon at a recent performance).
The cast also gets to spread its unangelic wings in many other ways in the first act, a collection of new songs by Koldewyn meant to suggest the louche sounds of Germany before Hitler came to power. The one performer who remains a constant presence through both acts is the emcee, a wickedly provocative character as sharply rendered by Zelda Koznofski. The songs come in a variety of musical styles, and the lyrics by Koldewyn and others push the anticipated titillation buttons.
A few songs do take things more seriously, most notably the plaintive solos that Haydon has in the first act and Zavadzki in the second. A changing roster of guest stars gets choice opportunities to belt out tunes, with Carly Ozard delivering at this particular performance. The show stops singing long enough for Wegner and Chacona to perform their sketch Spoogillios, which is unabashedly puerile.
Russell Blackwood, Thrillpeddlers' artistic director, is steady at the helm of this multilayered mashup, with a simple but stylish set by James Blackwood and imaginative costumes by Glenn Krumbholz that offer considerably more than plunging necklines. "We don't have a sense of guilt," sings the cast, and The Untamed Stage is on a constant mission to prove just that.
The Untamed Stage will run at the Hypnodrome through May 28. Tickets are $30-$35. Call (415) 377-4202 or go to hypnodrome.org.
Bruna Palmeiro plays a cow that undergoes a shocking transformation in one of the stories that make up Thrillpeddlers The Untamed Stage. Photo: davidallenstudio.com