In Review: Foreign Affairs Edition No. 2 5.13

Daniel Isengart – a showman and impresario so skilled at his trade he could doubtlessly charm a snake with a single fiber from his fedora and a Weillian melody – unveiled the newest edition of Foreign Affairs at Corio’s Supper Club on May 13th. As indicated by the subtitle Postmodern Cabaret and Transnational Lounge, the event seems in part a response to the distinctly 21st century conditions of the instability of national identity and the prevalence of the geographically displaced person.

The roster of performances constituted several transatlantic aural flights from Germany to New York City with several layovers in France. Sporting an ensemble at once suggesting that he could have emerged from the narrative of Die Dreigroschenoper or a warehouse situated in the heart of Berlin, Isengart offered the audience a serenade that shifted from dulcet to quasi-industrial in tone as seamlessly as it did from English to German.

Nicole Renaud’s francophonic offerings delivered on the accordion were visually accompanied by the sight of her signature sparkling petticoat and its strands of white light sewn into the seams. Amber Ray, burlesque artist and chanteuse outfitted in a smart, periwinkle PVC suitdress, performed “Whatever Lola Wants” with the slight modification of “Whatever Amber Wants.” She carried herself with the demeanor of a lady who is assured that at any given moment, should she utter the words Anybody got a match?, Corio’s would be alight with flame as each audience member speedily fumbled for a lighter.

In its original incarnation, Foreign Affairs was housed in Canal Chapter, an alternative collective loft space situated in Soho. By contrast, Corio’s Supper Club boasts an aesthetic marked by plush lounging divans upholstered in chartreuse velvet, antique cherubic wallpaper c. 1960, and a prix fixe dinner priced at 40 dollars per person. It boasts celebrity clientele of the likes of The Strokes and $13 Gypsy Rose Lee Appleton rum cocktails.

The spectacle, itself, remained nothing short of spectacular in its second incarnation. In the longstanding tradition of kabarett, it served as a forgetting potion for the seated spectators, enabling the erasure from memory of such catastrophic realities as the incipient recession and death tolls of the recent earthquake in China’s Sichuan province. In stark contradistinction to Foreign Affairs no. 1, however, this particular potion was purveyed in a decidedly exclusive apothecary. Lamentably, the atmosphere and crowd of attendees underwent the same sort of metamorphosis one imagines the Bauhaus might have undergone upon its move from Weimar to Dessau. It was recently reported that the event was once again going underground in search of a more suitable location, and one dares say that a considerable sum of cabaret connoisseurs await the appearance of Foreign Affairs edition no. 3.