Writers: Alessia Siniscalchi and Paul Spera
Director: Alessia Siniscalchi
Music: Marco Cappelli and Phil St George
If the Velvet Underground were ever to do Weimar cabaret in Garden City, Kansas, then this would be it. It may never be clear what is going on exactly, but Kulturscio’k Live Art Collective’s reimagining of Truman Capote’s early short story ‘Kindred Spirits’, where two women plan the murder of their husbands, and with his true-life crime book In Cold Blood casting a long shadow, Garden Party is dark, funny and mysterious.
However, in another layer of delightful confusion, the audience is welcomed to a ball that Capote is throwing, a reference to the Black and White Ball the author held in 1966. The guest list featured everyone from Henry Fonda to Tallulah Bankhead, Sammy Davis Jr to Gloria Vanderbilt. In-yer-face, The Met Gala! There are lace masks and bridal veils on the tables of the Canal Café Theatre. A paparazzo is taking photos while the other actors chat to their eager guests about Italy, about tattoos and, finally, about a woman who is harbouring a secret. The show has begun.
The paparazzo no longer brandishes a camera; instead, he waltzes around the performers (mainly Paul Spera and Fergus Head) with a light, creating momentary black-and-white tableaux for the songs and the few set dialogues between the characters. It all looks gloriously chaotic, and adding to the melee is a screen at the back showing shadowy figures and sometimes the lyrics of the R&B-influenced numbers.
And it’s these songs, performed by Marco Cappelli on a kind of outlandish percussive guitar and Didier Leglise on keyboards, which propel the action. One catchy track has the whole audience singing “It’s meaningless to apologise”, but it’s never clear quite what the apology is for. Killing someone, perhaps? Clarity isn’t really the point of this decadent cabaret.
While a success at Edinburgh Fringe last summer, the Canal Café Theatre, with its chairs and tables, is the most suitable London home for the Kulturscio’k Live Art Collection’s odd but charming immersive show.
Runs until 17 May 2026
