Victoria Bugbee’s A Surreal Soap Opera was an absurd commercial farce featuring song, dance, and suicidal seagulls set in a toxic dump disguised as a beach resort. Lobster bibs, bubbles, and fake toxic waste were issued to the audience during the performance, complementing the hysterics on stage, which included a pas de deux on the topic of safe sex, performed by dancers in giant inner tubes.

Writer and director Bugbee collaborated with choreographers John Maynard and Lynne Pidel, composer Joe Deihl, performers Pete Bove, Lynne Plagoff, Janine Hamilton, and George Warren, and with Lincoln Center Out of Doors to produce the piece.

Victoria Bugbee and Company

A Surreal Soap Opera

Manhattan

1992