THE BALLOON MAN

Food, sex and art collide in cabaret/circus/dinner theater
Teatro ZinZanni’s tent-based variety show is unlike anything you’ve seen.

 

Joel Salom performs during the Teatro ZinZanni show "Love, Chaos & Dinner" next to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts Thursday night.
KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
By PAUL HODGINS / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
from:  ocregister.com
November 9, 2012
"Breathe!" the dominatrix commands me.
 She wags her whip. I nearly hyperventilate. Who would dare defy a six-foot-tall woman in black latex and a tight corset, her authority enhanced by a pair of 12-inch heels?
A little dinnertime kink is just part of the fun at Teatro ZinZanni's "Love Chaos & Dinner," playing through the end of the year in a tent pitched on the Arts Plaza near Costa Mesa's Segerstrom Center for the Arts. The three-hour show is a strange hybrid: part European cabaret, part circus, classed up with a five-course gourmet meal served by Patina Catering and concocted by Ross Pangilinan, executive chef at Leatherby's Café Rouge.

Teatro ZinZanni has attracted enthusiastic audiences in its birthplace, Seattle, and in San Francisco since 1998; this is its first visit to Southern California. The venue is an intimate, antique big-top called a Spiegeltent. The quirky structures were originally built in Belgium during the late 19th and early 20th centuries for traveling shows and festivals. The one in Costa Mesa is 100 years old and holds 285 at its tables and booths, surrounded by mirrors and colored-glass walls.

Guests sit in a circular space with no center pole. The action takes place on a small stage opposite the main entrance and in the middle of the room, where a platform is wheeled out for the performers. (Be warned: they spill out into the aisles, too, and they're looking for audience members to play with.)

Like Cirque du Soleil's productions, there's a rather superfluous story propelling the action in "Love, Chaos & Dinner." It is set during the golden era of radio, and we're witnessing a variety show being broadcast on RZ, Radio ZinZanni, as it is performed.
read more--
http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/dinner-377292-love-chaos.html