Preview: Ava Coo at The Chateau L’Amour

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ADC culture Preview the strip Theatre

Let’s face it: clubbing in Cambridge isn’t great. Another shit night in Cindies? Realised Fez is just too mainstream? Life can’t be ironic for ever… (I’m referring to Kuda).  This town needs something new, and here at The Tab, we think we’ve found it. 

It was all we could do to sneak a preview with Ava Coo and Otto Mink in their club, The Chateau L’Amour – which is appearing, as if by magic, upon the ADC stage next week. This proved to be a lot less simple than anticipated.

You see, the Chateau L’Amour is in the middle of the American desert. They say either Nevada or Utah, and I couldn’t tell you any better. Armed with a stolen map and a 9mm automatic, I set out to find it. It took 5 years walking through desert, across the flat, barren planes of my soul until I found myself  there, the only building for miles beneath the desert stars.

I walked through the swing doors to a smoky, scuzzy club. The room was full of drunken queens, but across the room, 2 pairs of eyes caught mine. I walked over, boots sticking to the floor.

Tab: Hello

Ava: Hello. Hello… Oh that word, it thrills me so.

She turns to Otto.

Ava: Say hello, baby.

Otto: Good evening.

Ava is a female female impersonator. Otto I presume is the manager, he wears a white suit.

Tab: May I ask, Ava. Is that a wig you’re wearing?

Ava: I know all about hair. I got a cerficate from the Wilfred academy of beauty. Two fuckin years it took me. Turns out I’m allergic to hairspray. Two fucking years.

Otto: Yes. It’s a wig.

Ava: I’m pretty talented.

Otto: She’s mediocre.

 

Tab: How did you get this job?

Ava: I just arrived here. I been on quite a journey, same as you. Its taken me a while to get here and lemme tell you, I learned more than I ever wanted about the revolutionary war, the amish and other assorted religious types who don’t have sex. But I’m here now and that’s the important thing. You look beat, did ya come from the city?

Tab: Which city do you mean, Ava?

Ava: The city.

Tab: Could you elaborate?

Ava: Tell me. Is the grass really blue?

The horizon appears to clear suddenly – the colours become somewhat more vibrant, and in the distance I can see the crest of a pyramid. I wonder if we might be in Egypt.

Tab: Those buildings, were they there before?

Otto: That’s the Luxor Hotel. You can see Vegas from here.

Ava: Don’t ya been to Vegas before?! You’re gonna love it. There’s lots of action and chance. So much chance it gives ya goose bumps.

Tab: Ms Coo, can you tell me about your act and your work at…

Ava: I wanna work in the Luxor so bad! [she swigs from a whiskey bottle] I wanna know what its like inside that pyramid!

Tab: Do you know why you find the Luxor so alluring?

Ava: Why answer any questions when there are so many of them? I guess that’s why they have philosophers. But most philosophers are French or German because I guess in those countries way back when there was nothing to do but think…

Tab: How come America never did any thinking?

Ava: Americans were too busy building roads and putting the Indjuns in their place. And dealing with all that stuff we had to catch up on account of us being a new country and all.

I wonder if that means we’re doomed never to think of the right answers for why stuff happens…

Otto: Look at the sun. Its growing bigger in the sky.

Ava: It’s the eclipse, its gotta be the eclipse!

Otto: No! not yet, not yet!

Ava: Ain’t it just something to witness…

I watch as the moon passes over the sun and suddenly the entire United States of America are shrouded in darkness. 

I crawl home with my flashlight and the whiskey bottle, listening to Dolly Parton on my Walkman. 

Spectacular, sunset over the land that time forgot.

The Strip is on at the ADC from Tuesday 3rd to Saturday 7th at 7:45pm.

This show is at the ADC. This show is not at the ADC. You have never seen anything like this show before.

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