Caligula Maximus

by Alfred Preisser & Randy Weiner

directed by Christopher McElroen

photo by Lia Chang 

CALIGULA MAXIMUS takes place on the last night of the notorious dictator's life, in his palace where he is stage managing, directing, and starring in one of his famous "entertainments" which test the limits of human intellect and appetite. Caligula, sensing the encroachment of monotheistic religions (Christianity and Judaism) holds a phantasmagoric revival meeting in which he attempts to save the world by ushering in a new religion with himself as its principle prophet and god. Caligula's "senate" is an outrageous collection of circus performers, wrestlers, animals, show girls and freaks who enact his spectacles and indulge his whims and fantasies. As the revival meeting reaches fever pitch, his troupe grows weary of being used as toys, gains a sense of their own power and, bedecked in the war paint and leather costumes of barbarian invaders, descend upon him and murder him in mob frenzy. Expect circus, music, dance, rhetoric, and the unexpected.