In the summer of 1990, after the amazing success of Uncle Tad Baker’s Loon Show, the Institute of Absurdity sought to out-do themselves by attempting to perform perhaps the most controversial play of the 20th Century: Demetrius Toteras’ infamous, ‘The Execution of Abe Goldstein, a Depraved Homosexual’. Written in 1956, this blatantly-offensive play was banned across Europe after only a handful of performances and was never shown in America. The idea of executing a homosexual man in a gas chamber for his ‘sexual mis-deeds’ shocked and outraged Europe and was shut down before it even had a chance to be seen.

 

Toteras focused on the disease that was ravaging the Homosexual community at that time, Hepatitis C, but in the hands of Uncle Tad Baker, the disease was reinvented as AIDS, itself at the height of virulence at the time Baker revived the play. The reinterpretation saw the Loon Show Cast as the central characters of the play, again featuring a tomato-throwing audience, but the play held nothing back in terms of vile, homophobic, racist and disgusting content, which was as Toteras intended it to be. “This is the play I originally envisioned and I am over-joyed that Uncle Tad and his crew had the guts to pull it off, in one of the most conservative and censored cities in the world,” Toteras told the press after its opening night. “It was successful because it was finally performed, who gives a shit if the press don’t understand or get offended?!”

 

Baker felt it was important to remain relatively true to the original script, yet he encouraged his performers to range as wide as they felt in bringing to life the rough outline which Baker presented them. No one took this to heart to the degree that Dave Lommen, as the condemned Abe Goldstein, did; this Master of Rage and Violence captivated the audiences with searing accusations, vile rants and the outright pleasure he felt in infecting the many lives he touched, shocking the audience repeatedly and earning every tomato thrown his way.

 

The result is a performance which, though uneven and wildly spontaneous, with audience members emerging from the crowd to attack Goldstein for his deeds, absolutely captivated, stunned and overwhelmed. Few could believe a play such as this could be performed in San Francisco, and alas, after only 3 performances and a poorly-judged attempt to outrage the city by stripping aside the polite title and replacing it with the outrageous and obviously offensive ‘Gas a Jew Queer’, the play was closed down and the Institute banned from further performances in San Francisco.

 

‘The Execution’ has not been seen since the night it was recorded, this the 2nd of 3 shows and the most electric. Judge for yourself whether it rightly deserved the title, ‘The most offensive performance in the history of modern theater’, as the critic Mark Montaigne has called it. But take care, for the scenes you will encounter may disturb you to a degree you may not recover from!

 

Starring Uncle Tad Baker, Myron the Moron as Jazzy, Al Starr, Lee Howard, Eddy the Jew, Dr. Ken Scott, The Monoliths, and the star of the show, Dave Lommen as Abe Goldstein, along with a host of audience members.