A performer furiously counts to a billion and beyond. A baby doll is dismembered of her arm and then decapitated. A woman desperately tries to pick up a scrap of paper with her feet. The best absurdist scenarios in this mildly antagonistic revue catch you off-guard with their ability to evoke, to shock, to disturb. (The worst will bore you to tears.) Lurching from leaden agit-prop to lighthearted nonsense, Soiree DADA does everything dada should do. It annoys. It tickles. It wearies. It delights. The German accents are terrible. The whiteface makeup and the suits with bowler hats feel equally indebted to Marcel Marceau as to the MC from Cabaret. Death to dada. Long live dada. You may not like the show but Tristan Tzara probably wouldn’t have it any other way.

Soirée DADA
By Soirée DADA
Performance Space 122 - Upstairs
Sat, Aug 13 at 2:30 p.m.; Sun, Aug 14 at 5 p.m.; Mon, Aug 15 at 9 p.m.; Fri, Aug 19 at 7 p.m.; Sat, Aug 20 at 4:30 p.m.