Live wires - Voltaic Vaudeville sparks interest in underground entertainment

By Bob Young/ Music/Boston Herald

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - Updated: 07:12 AM EST

Put down your clicker. Turn off the TV for a night, take a step back in time, and check out what some consider the future of live entertainment.

        Voltaic Vaudeville is a variety show that sounds at first like a throwback to the days of parasols and derby hats. Then you discover that most of the more than 15 acts appearing over four days this week at Arlington’s Regent Theatre are part of what’s billed as “Boston’s underground performance circuit.”
        Thanks to the Regent’s extravaganza, the scene won’t be quite so underground anymore.
        “There’s a thirst for this,” show producer and Somerville resident Heather Kuhn said. “It’s been bubbling up, so it’s going to be an above-ground performance.”
        For several years now, a loyal cadre of fans have made their way to places such as Pan9 in Allston, Nom D’Artiste in Chinatown and other nontraditional spaces to experience evenings that are part art, part entertainment and full-out eclectic. On tap for five shows Thursday through Sunday are 17 wildly different acts, at least eight of which will appear at each performance.
        You’ll see a husband and wife acrobatic team, non-motivational speaker/comedian Brian Longwell, a tap dancer, jugglers, a Russian gypsy singer/dancer, swanky burlesque performer Molly Crabapple (who won’t be appearing at the Saturday and Sunday afternoon family shows) and that local staple of upbeat poems and stories, Brother Blue.
        “People are stuck in front of the boob tube,” Kuhn said. “For anyone who loves to change channels, this is for them.”
        Kuhn said the name Voltaic Vaudeville has several meanings: Think electricity, lighting up the underground scene and jolting the Regent Theatre into a new age.
        The Regent opened in 1916 as a vaudeville house. To celebrate its 90th birthday, Kuhn and the Regent crew decided it was time to go back to the future. Variety shows are nothing new, of course, although such events gave way to the likes of “The Ed Sullivan Show” and other televised entertainment decades ago.
        Evan O’Television, who will serve as host and MC for Voltaic Vaudeville, has been part of the local revival, both as a producer of Pan9 events and as an artist and performer who works at the intersection of new technology and free-spirited vaudeville.
        “I consider these shows an antidote to the fact that Boston is very scene-segmented,” the Watertown resident said. “Musicians travel in musicians circles and even within that there’s Berklee-type jazz circles and rock ’n’ roll circles. Then there are circles of filmmakers, theater artists, children’s theater artists, comedians and so on.
        “I’ve kind of circulated as someone who brings these folks together.”
        Does O’Television see a common denominator among the acts that will be part of Voltaic Vaudeville?
             “They’ve all concocted their acts independently and are original creative artists,” he said. “And every person in the lineup pretty much has a commando notion of how to keep an audience’s attention. They know this audience wants to be surprised.”