Glenda Frank
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“Arias with a Twist” Returns With Camp, Wonder and a Surreal Journey “Arias with a Twist,” created by Joey Arias and Basil Twist; directed by Basil Twist. They’re back. Joey Arias, singer and performer, and Basil Twist, master puppeteer, take us on an irreverent, wry journey through pop culture’s iconic images and memories. This tweaked and twisted revisit of their 2008 production is now playing at HERE Arts Center. The show opens with a delicious tease of a curtain-raiser, followed by an introduction to four exquisite, lifelike wooden musicians created in the 1930s by Griff Williams, Twist’s puppeteer grandfather. Then Joey arrives in a female bodysuit and black bikini—what else?—aboard a spaceship, strapped to a table to be probed by a chorus of giant blue-eyed aliens. Joey quips and quivers before being ejected: a tiny puppet figure tossed through outer space to land in an exotic tropical garden, where flowers and foliage metamorphose into snakes and animals. Joey sings to us. The scene is at once amateurish and mesmerizing, somehow touching on the profound, although I have no idea how that happens. The show is very funny, but it also evokes a range of emotions. It seems populated, although Joey is the sole performer. Perhaps it’s the shifting settings, perhaps the conjuring of classic cult films, which makes us imaginative co-creators. The godlike theme emerges through shifting mandalas—a beautiful, drug-free acid trip. Joey grows four more arms, like the Hindu god Shiva. The arms multiply into the eight limbs of a pink octopus, casting a blue shadow. My favorite segment takes place in a diminutive diorama of New York City. Joey appears as a giant who stomps through the streets and dances with choruses of curvy legs. Joey exits and returns twice the size. The scene was most likely inspired by the so-bad-it’s-good 1958 science-fiction film “The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman,” about an abused socialite who keeps growing after being abducted by aliens. The musical interludes are also send-ups, with camouflaged but recognizable lyrics borrowed from the Beatles (“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”), a theme echoed in the lighting by Ayumu “Poe” Saegusa and projections by Daniel Brodie; Joey’s heartrending rendition of Eric Carmen’s “All by Myself”; and Billie Holiday’s signature song “You’ve Changed,” with Joey wearing a white gardenia at the waist. Joey Arias is a legend. Guy Laliberté, founder of Cirque du Soleil, wanted to create a new, edgier show for adults, centered on erotic song, dance, acrobatics and comedy. “Zumanity” was billed as the “sensual side of Cirque du Soleil.” Arias was not just a contributor but also the Mistress of Seduction and emcee from 2003 to 2007. “Arias with a Twist” is staged in the 76-seat Dorothy B. Williams Theatre, named after the puppeteer’s grandmother. It’s a bit of theater and New York City history.
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