The Devil and His 30-Foot Member

The beach balls are flying right at our heads. We catch them and hurl them back at two skinny guys, who are running around and screaming like electrocuted cats. They’re banging on instruments placed strategically on the stage. Seth Paynter, tall and thin with a shaved head, turns his back to the crowd, squats awkwardly, clangs a gong and yells something undecipherable. He turns on a small tape recorder at the front of the stage that plays more screaming gibberish, then he and partner Richard Cholakian saunter away. So ends the first part of Paynter’s bizarre (and that’s understating it) performance art/absurdist theater/avant-garde jazz program, “Sex and the Absurd.” Full disclosure: I’m here to videotape the program and briefly participate at the end. But I, like the audience here at DiverseWorks, have no idea what’s going to happen during the show. (My cue that they’re ready for me is simply “when the demon collapses on stage.” Er, yeah, got it.)

The second piece begins when Paynter returns holding a saxophone, wearing nothing but a scuba mask, shorts and flippers. A blowup sex doll is on his back. Paynter stomps around slowly and honks some sporadic notes. Then he stops, lifts the sax and fits the mouthpiece in the blowup doll’s mouth. The audience, getting into his performance (if nervously), giggles and hoots as he stomps offstage.

The piece, like the others, ends when Paynter switches on the droning tape-recorded gibberish. He returns, dressed as a demon with two-and-a-half-foot horns. He has a 30-foot hose attached to his waist. Under the huge makeshift phallus is a set of equally grotesquely large testicles (represented by two cantaloupes), which are dangling in panty hose, completing the nasty, evil triad. He plays imaginary baseball with his ten-yard schlong. Then two female dancers in skimpy clothing come out, moving suggestively and playing with the thing. They carry it, rub it on their bodies and then stab the cantaloupes with large needles. Paynter screams out in agony. The process goes on — too long (pun intended) — until the demon collapses on stage.

That’s my cue. Paynter, Cholakian and the bassist kick into a jazz set. Meanwhile, I run out on stage as a bear carrying groceries, a chicken vacuuming the stage and a robot stand-up comic. I haven’t watched my performance yet, and because it was so hot in the bear costume, I don’t remember much. I do have a bit of advice for Paynter, though: Next time you do one of these shows, don’t leave your damned 30-foot penis lying around backstage. A robot can really hurt himself on it.