Ahhh…!  Don’t we all love a theatrical experience that makes us ask ourselves some serious questions?

“Sex with Biden, sex with Putin, or sex with the Dalai Lama?”

“Big dick, big house, or great sense of humor?”

“Monument of Madonna or monument of Marina Abramović in Washington Square Park?”

For full disclosure: After Ivo Dimchev’s rambunctious, deliciously indulgent performance piece In Hell With Jesus/Top 40 at New York City’s famous La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, I did actually look up who Marina Abramović is.  (She’s a Serbian conceptual and performance artist.)  Yes, kids, this is a show where you actually learn something!  But expanding one’s knowledge of Eastern European icons or contorting one’s brain cells into new formations (“Dirty cock or dirty dishes?”) is just scratching the surface of Ivo Dimchev’s 90-minute fantasia of art, music, pop culture, sexuality, politics, and philosophy.  Does In Hell With Jesus/Top 40 live up to its titillating name?  The answer is, “Yes, yes, and YES!”  (Or, to say it in Dimchev’s native Bulgarian, “Да, Да, and Да!“)

In Hell With Jesus/Top 40 is ostensibly set up as an audition for a new show, with Ivo as the flamboyantly colorful director/casting agent. Three lucky (and oh-so-talented) performers– “Cassondra”, “Xavier”, and “Chris”– eventually get the job. That said, the “plot” of In Hell With Jesus/Top 40 becomes secondary (or thirdly, or fourthly…) to a soundtrack of hilarious original music, one over-the-top vignette after another, and taking audience participation to outrageous new heights.  The audience is constantly waiting with antici…PATION for the next delightfully demented song, crazy situation, or chance to join Ivo onstage.  Throughout the show, the artist recruited a seemingly infinite supporting cast of audience members to be backup performers: dancers, readers, and more.  On the night of Saturday, November 25th at La Mama, Ivo’s over-the-top energy must have been contagious (or transmitted via that intermittent fog…), because he couldn’t have found more enthusiastic participants to “Respect Art!”  At the show’s… ahem, “climax”, he even pulled an actual real-life couple (on their first date!) onstage to recreate a sex show at one of those infamous Copenhagen “after hours” clubs, with the pair wearing only some “mood lighting”, glitter, and fog. What happened in “Copenhagen”… hopefully will happen again in Ivo’s next show.  This reviewer, for one, was sorry he didn’t volunteer for THAT segment!

With all the delicious debauchery in In Hell WIth Jesus/Top 40, it may be easy to overlook just how talented the cast is.  Ivo is a gifted comedian, with everything from his wild and crazy facial expressions to his blond hairdo, which should be credited as a separate cast member in itself.  There was also the intermittent ejaculation bursts from his fog machine, which never failed to get a laugh from the audience.  As a writer of over 100 songs, Dimchev’s original music is ripe for far more mass discovery in the future:  Gays in the Crowd should become the next international Pride anthem, and some of his other songs– including some with provocative lyrics about personal and sexual empowerment– deserve to make it into the… uhm, Top 40.  As for the rest of the cast, Cassondra James Kellam, Xavier Smith, Chris Tanner, and Andrew Fremont Smith are all wonderful as Ivo’s supporting players.  Kellam and Smith are gifted singers, and Tanner is a fine match for Ivo’s particular brand of comedic aesthetic.

In Hell With Jesus/Top 40 is more than just raunchy and fun.  It’s smart, bold, and achingly original.  It’s clear that Ivo Dimchev is best when he is allowed to be himself, without inhibition or censorship. (It also helps to have an audience who matches his energy level as well.)  In Hell With Jesus/Top 40 joyously runs all the written rules of “traditional” theater through a paper shredder– and then uses it for confetti.  Let’s hope for a second (and third and fourth) cumming coming!

Visit www.IvoDimchev.com for more!