- It's a cliche to say that Berlin is a city "constantly reinventing itself." It'd be more accurate to say that a tight knit group of creatives, made up of equal parts native Berliners and expatriates, keep the city in a constant state of motion progressing towards an even weirder state of being. At the helm of this ADD crew is the gender-bending queen of electro smut, Peaches, who somehow manages to keep one foot ahead of the city. In fact, if Berlin had a soundtrack, it's likely it'd be written, produced and performed by Peaches before anyone even realized what was going on.
Take, for example, last week's performance of Peaches Christ Superstar. The show's three night run at the historic Hebbel am Ufer Theatre was over before many even realized the initial controversy over the rights to perform the play had been averted. Following a press frenzy fed by Peaches's Twitter account, the show was given the green light by the German government, but not without some confusion over what exactly had caused the hang up in the first place. Perhaps the family of the play's late lyricist Tim Rice feared the performance would be in keeping with Peaches's previous performances. Like the concert at last year's Berlin Festival where dancers urinated off the side of the stage.
Photo credit: Vesna Turkalj
But this time the shock didn't come from flashy gender fuck costuming or in-your-face displays of public indecency, but from how normal it all was. For the bulk of the somewhat schizophrenic show, Peaches simply stands on the stage, accompanied by long-time collaborator Chilly Gonzales rocking the hell out of a grand piano, belting out the lyrics to every role in the score from Jesus to the Jerusalem public without missing a beat. Costuming was also kept to a minimum, with Peaches appearing first in a white spandex bodysuit, and later in a gold tissue lame jacket that might have traveled back in time from post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. It's no surprise that Peaches makes an excellent Judas and a less convincing Mary Magdalene, with the lighting crew working overtime to help distinguish between the roles. The effect is sometimes as awkward as an audition, sometimes as engrossing as an opera. For some, it was surprising that Peaches proved as much a real vocalist as the chick who became famous for singing, "sucking on my titties."
Throughout the whole two hour performance, the only sounds aside from applause from the all-ages German crowd came in the final act when Peaches was raised on to a wet-looking twenty foot tall crucifix with a penis at the top and a clitoris at the bottom. She sings the finale dangling above the stage as a chorus of queer dancers shimmy around her and the hermaphroditic religious object waving their hands in the air in praise of Peaches...excuse me, Jesus. Following the initial gasps and giggles, "Finally something crazy!" seemed to be the popular response.