 THE NOTHING LIKE
VAUDEVILLE SHOW
Music by Teddy & Kurt Sikora Book & Lyrics by Teddy Sikora
Phantasy Theatre, Cleveland - November 19, 1994
The Story
A deformed sixteen year old Boy, forbidden by his single Mother ever
to leave their rural country home finally runs away. At a harbour,
a Navigator offers to take him to "a place where one like him can learn
to see." He accepts and enters a dark, surreal land where he finds
himself in a carnival. He enjoys this land until he witnesses the Freak
Show. He leaves, disgusted, but not without being noticed by the show's
Ringmaster and Barker. Deciding that he's "not yet ripe" they
resist seizing him until he can be ripened.
After exploring the carnival, the boy wanders the streets and encounters
the horrifying Man with the Creepy Smile. He lies in shock as the town
people pity and scorn him. Attempting to recover, he meets Teri, a
freak-lusting woman who entices him into a bar. However, she is met
by her angry boyfriend who viciously pulls her out of the bar leaving
the boy all alone. He tries to hide in the corner; but Barker, disguised
as a bar drunk, reveals "the
freak" to the paranoid patrons.
The boy runs out and encounters a homeless Bum who teaches him how to
beg and tells him of a hopeless life on the streets. After the boy leaves,
the Bum reveals himself as the Ringmaster in disguise. The boy's mother
arrives; and, while searching for her lost son, encounters the Ringmaster
and Barker. Meanwhile, the boy encounters the Man with the Creepy Smile
for the second time.
A proper looking man sees the terrified boy and offers to take him home
for the evening. At the gentleman's home, the boy quickly finds himself
tied to a chair in a bizarre psychiatric session hosted by the self-proclaimed
Son of Mr. Hyde. During the session, the boy realises that society
is what makes him a freak and he decides that he has no need for society.
The man's struggling Jekyll half allows the boy to leave.
To avoid the cold night, the boy decides to hide in a wax museum.
Inside, he is captured by Fletcher, the museum's owner. This necrophiliac
warlock, who embalms and displays dead bodies, then introduces the
boy to The Allegiance to Sir Terror, who would prefer him as a Freak
Show spy. When the boy refuses, he is taken to the mob's number one
assassin, the Tap Dance Killer, where he is given the choice to "join or be waxed." He
escapes, however, when the killer is forced to flee from the approaching
Man with the Creepy Smile.
The boy seeks solitude in a graveyard where he is found by the Barker
and Ringmaster. They convince him to consider life in the Freak Show.
The scorned Fletcher pinpoints their location and casts a spell which
transforms the lifeless corpses into zombie killers. The boy, Barker,
and Ringmaster narrowly escape.
Back at the carnival, the boy is torn between the many forces that
seek to control him: The Ringmaster and the Freak Show, The Son of
Mr. Hyde, Teri, Fletcher, and The Allegiance to Sir Terror. To make
his choice more difficult Miss Fergenagle, a believer in "psychiatric saving grace" and
who wants to shut down the Freak Show, arrives with the boy's mother.
Confronted by his mother, the boy must choose what is right for him,
and, with the help of fellow freaks, he shuns the world's Symphonies
of Sympathies and joins the Freak Show.
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