For many a month now, AntiFolk's own Peter Dizozza has been writing and producing variations of Prepare to Meet your Maker, an always increasing colletion of characters, creations and crackpot concepts about a hunchback undertaker and Cementeria, the corpse he necrophils back to life.
It's a sick, twisted, abstract musical theatre extravaganza, absorbing and spitting out multicultural religions, nymphomania, film theory, infidelity, dance, jealousy, acting, necrophilia, unrequited love, and chicks chicks chicks!
Since first performing the first version of Prepare to Meet your Maker on Bastille Day, the original 20-minute song cycle has evolved into a lumbering hour-long multimedia porterhouse.
In the process, as more people have gotten involved, adding their expertise and experiences, the show has gotten more chaotic, sprawling and fascinating.
The show has changed as it's gained directors, choreographers, and daily script and music rewrites from Dizozza. The structure, the plot, the inspiration, the execution, all seem to be fairly mutable.
Still, there are constants. Dizozza plays piano, Dizozza writes the material, and Dizozza sings the dizzying line "as long as we keep fucking, so too will all be well in the world," from his anthem to the corpse, "Cementeria."
Among the changes is increasing AntiFolk involvement. Regular performers in Dizozza's smorgasborg are Dan Emery, Steve Espinola, and, more recently, Charles Herold. With all that, Prepare to Meet your Maker is worth seeing twice: once to get a sense of its psychotic scope, again to understand what the hell's going on.
© 1997 Jon Berger for Antimatters