Desperate Living

Passes for the retrospective can be bought by contacting kratt@elektriteater.ee. Regular pass costs 25€, Reduced pass (for students, elderly and handicapped) costs 20€. Retrospective pass grants entry to all five screenings.

John Waters first feature without Divine in the lead takes some cues from mid-century womens pictures and queers it up with the gross-out, boundary pushing, excess that made him famous and an ambitious foray into fantasyland. Mink Stole is hysterical (and hysteric) as a woman on the run hiding out in the fairytale town of Mortville where evil Queen Carlotta (Waters regular Edith Massey) rules with an iron fist. Every emotion is played pitched up to the highest height while all of the humor skews to the lowest low. If something so deliberately tacky and in such poor taste could be considered operatic, then Desperate Living is it.