A traveling Freakshow finds itself at a crossroads.
Things are changing.
The line between “normal” and “outcast” is blurring.
The family they have created may be dissolving.
Will the Dog Faced Woman break from the show?
Can the jaded Ringmaster find redemption through love?
Does the Pinhead take solace in Jesus,
or burn the place down?
Amalia, a woman with no arms or legs, perches atop her pedestal, a coy smile playing upon her face.
"You are wondering," she purrs, "if I've ever had sexual intercourse."
Playwright Carson Kreitzer gets Freakshow off to a ripping start. She plunges the audience immediately into the intrigues of a turn-of-the-century sideshow— tales of freaks born and made, of the genuine article and gaff, of the "shame of exhibition" and the terrible need to be seen. She sketches the liaisons among Amalia; her muck-covered lover Matthew; the idiot Pinhead; Aquaboy, the human salamander; the Girl, a pert runaway; Judith, the dog-faced woman; and Mr. Flip, the operation's unctuous barker, promoter, and paterfamilias.
Kreitzer can create complex characters, such as the lordly, dirty-talking Amalia, and write tender, clever dialogue— as when the runaway goes to kiss the begilled, beguiled Aquaboy, and he warns her, quite sadly, "I don't turn into a prince."
— Alexis Soloski, Village Voice
Freakshow uses the conventions of the midway and the carnival to explore sexuality and identity, combining theory and narrative in a more imaginative fashion than anything save perhaps for the work of artist/novelist Shelley Jackson.
-Jason Grote, The Brooklyn Rail
