Cirque Berzerk, Lucha VaVoom: The play’s not the only thing

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It’s a circus. And a rock concert. And a site-specific art installation of sorts. And a Goth/Weimar era cabaret spin on the Orpheus legend -- kind of.

It’s Cirque Berzerk, the show that started at Burning Man in the Nevada desert and is now playing through Aug. 30 under a big-top tent on the edge of Chinatown. It’s one of a small but growing number of alternative-performance shows in Los Angeles that are attracting new as well as mainstream theater audiences. Another is Lucha VaVoom, the fusion of neo-burlesque, Mexican lucha libre wrestling and post-punk vaudeville that’s been playing L.A. and other cities for seven years, most recently at downtown’s Mayan Theatre (pictured above).

‘Audiences are so self-conscious here. They’re more concerned about who’s looking at them than about what they’re watching,’ says Lucha co-producer Liz Fairbairn. ‘But it’s amazing about Lucha VaVoom. People walk in the doors and they just drop all that crap.’

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