The Edwardian Ball and World's Faire

The Edwardian Ball and World’s Faire

As a child in Switzerland, I recall being a guest at the home of the country’s most renowned playwright, Friedrich Durrenmatt, an author of grotesque surrealism and macabre humor. To entertain me, Mr. Durrenmatt shared with me the books of Edward St. John Gorey (1925-2000), obviously a kindred spirit of his. Needless to say, I found the Victorian styled illustrations unsettling, yet intriguing. My dreams that night were haunted by dark, ominous figures, with large hollow eyes. It was imagery that I could never quite escape from.

Now, decades later, on February 9, 2018, I found myself awake, stepping into that unearthly dream of childhood at The Edwardian Ball and World’s Faire. Hosted at the majestic Neo- Baroque Centennial Theater of The Globe, the world of Gorey’s wondrously bizarre imagination came to life.

Words fail to describe the cavalcade of ingenuous costuming created respectively by each participant. The elite of SoCal’s CosPlay, Retro and Dance communities came out in full force to display their sartorial sensations. Corsets, leather, feathers, lace, silk, ball gowns, steampunk, pirate attire, saloon girls, vintage military dress, gender fluidity adorned the participants who whirled around the ballroom waltzing to recorded music prior to the live stage show. Downstairs, a DJ spun in the playful Edwardian Gardens which featured lawn games, Midway games, and parlor entertainment amidst the shrubbery and vines twisting up fabric covered columns.

Throughout the three leveled Globe Theater were cardboard cutouts of replicated Gorey etchings. Above the crimson walls, chandeliers and gold moldings of the main level, was housed the Museum of Wonders in the Mezzanine, a collection of oddities and natural wonders,

Here, visitors were greeted by the eerie doll Creepy Jenny and her owner artist Debbie Wubben, who explained that she first received Jenny as a gift in 1960. She was so frightened of the figure, that it lived in her grandmother’s basement for 50 years. Now Creepy Jenny and her cohorts of other dollies make the rounds of public appearances at various underground festivities. Also adorning the Mezzanine Museum, were interactive recreations of historic spaces, artfully put together to give one the chills, such as the pick pocket shoe-shine barber and tea shop. Free Haikus were offered by the Haiku Guys and Gals, a troupe of improvisational performance poets. They asked me to pick a subject and they would type (on an old fashioned type-writer) an appropriate Haiku. I picked “my destiny” to which they asked what I might want it to involve. I replied “travel to Switzerland, another dimension and philanthropy”. Chris and Erick each wrote a Haiku:

Upon arrival

Discovers her crystal ball

Was the size of the Earth

And

Suckered through a wormhole

To an alpine galaxy

To settle my star

Returning down to the main level, which aside from a stage and dance floor, was a grand exposition of art, science, history and wonders of the world, Marsha Hurst of the Kinetic Steamworks was working away at a printing press from the 1900s, printing gold ink onto black coasters for souvenirs.

Making a grand entrance, the designer extraordinaire, Bobby Love arrived, bedecked in such a sparkling, shimmering, jeweled ensemble (the first of his three that night) the intricacies of which can hardly be described. One must view a Bobby Love Fashion themselves to truly understand.

The stage show began with a Dickensian barker as MC announcing the first act, The Holy Crow Jazz Band, an ensemble of highly skilled and polished musicians specializing in traditional jazz and blues from the 1900s to 1930s. A four piece band of sousaphone, resonator guitar, clarinet/saxophone double, and a female powerfully gritty lead vocalist /washboard player, the Holy Crows kept the crowd bopping on the dance floor to their original interpretations of classic repertoire.

Next up was the sensational Molly Morgan and her bevy of beautiful belly dancers Les Petite Bon Bons, enticing the crowd with their sensuous and craftily choreographed numbers; a traditional belly dance followed by a charming ragtime.

An erotic sword play dance occurred, followed by a Vintage lingerie fashion show. As entertainment on the stage took an intermission, a sensational impromptu pas de deux sprung up on the dance floor between spectacular stunt woman circus artist Bonnie Morgan and the 1995 World Champion Skater, Trey Knight. The two had toured together many years back with Paul McCartney and rediscovered each other at the Edwardian Ball. He on roller skates, and she on her lithe gymnastic feet, merely started dancing with each other, when all eyes turned on them, as their professional movement skills were too brilliant to ignore.

The Vau de Vivre Society then took the stage with glorious, gorgeous freaks of nature. A beautiful en pointe ballerina, entranced the audience, in her elven like attire, and elegant dance, culminating in a sprinkling of rose petals. An aerialist, dressed like a manic baby doll in a bikini, performed in a floating cube; “a prison of her own design”. In the center ring, a spectacular contortionist, twisted herself into nonhuman form, again, reminding me of childhood and the Kinder Zirkus I witnessed in Zurich, Switzerland which so impacted me. Then, back on stage, soaring through the heavens, Princess Celeste executed breathtaking celestial spins through an aerial hoop.

It was a complete sensory overload. An “alternative-universe extravaganza.” Leaving the affair probably far too early, with such beautifully unearthly and mysterious images running through my brain, the words of Edward Gorey rang out in my head “It is well we cannot hear the screams we make in other people’s dreams.”