Peter Aterman’s satirical look at the 20th century bounces the audience through several short, darkly comic episodes where various aspects of Europe’s submission to American corporate culture are highlighted.
A frustrated Italian tour guide patiently explains to American tourists that they can’t see the Pope, even though they have come all the way from Milwaukee and is shocked by operations they have undergone to make their stomachs larger. An American stock broker hires an Aztec priest who makes human sacrifices to predict the movements of the stock markets. Celine Dion coolly announces that Hitler is her role model. A German businessman who collects shampoo samples from hotels tells another guest he lives in Dusseldorf USA because “we all live in America now”.
The whole show is sandwiched between amorphous flight announcements from European airlines with the Dutch announcer suggesting that passengers engage in sexual relations and take recreational drugs during the flight and the German pilot finally suggesting that if passengers wish to slit their wrists they are welcome to do so in the toilets as long as they “clean up as their life drips away”. Aterman morphs seamlessly from one character to the next throughout.
Engaging and uncomfortably amusing in places, this show is no light hour of stomach achingly funny stand up comedy and would fit better in the theatre section of the Fringe guide.
3/5
Cath Wood
