Cirque Berzerk is equal parts Broadway Musical and back-alley circus freak-show. The hour-and-a-half event contains an entertaining mixture of contortionists, acrobatics, deranged clowns, goons, fire-eaters and a midget. Really, what more do you need? I would say “Nothing!” but Cirque Berzerk decided to add a storyline and original soundtrack. The plot is simple: girl signs away her life in hopes of escaping the doldrums of the corporate daily-grind. She is held captive by the Lord of the underworld and spends the majority of the show spectating all the fun on stage. By the end, she’s joined the show, dancing in a ring and driving home the musical director’s message: “In order to do something great, you have to think outside the conventions of society.” But rather than creating an authentically twisted or thought-provoking experience, Cirque Berzerk comes across more like a Disney interpretation of “the dark side.” First of all, the show takes place at Club Nokia, which is in the middle of the corporate entertainment Hell known as 9th and Fig (i.e., the furthest thing from being outside the conventions of society). This venue is an ironic choice, when compared to the show’s mission statement, but it is nonetheless an intimate theater space and proves a good home for Cirque Berzerk. The music is mostly hard rock with heavy slap bass and vibrato soprano vocals floating along. It’s like Primus at the Renaissance Fair, but the music doesn’t really matter. Overall, Cirque Berzerk is “edgy” theater you can take your conservative relative to—so long as your conservative relative can handle a little gratuitous gay make-out—and it wins everyone over with its stunning visual presentation.

—Vanessa Gonzalez