Performance ensemble takes on the pursuit of emptiness

There is some parading around in the nude by beautiful young women in "BIG, 3rd episode (happy/end)." There's also sexually suggestive dancing, and trash talk.

But while one may be initially titillated by this performance spectacle at On the Boards, the internationally praised French-Austrian troupe Superamas wants its R-rated antics to turn you off, even as they turn you on.

The expertly assembled multimedia piece (part of a trilogy of provocative works by the group) coolly depicts, and debunks, the constant pursuit of narcissistic pleasure, which our consumerist Western civilization glossily packages and sells.

In the opening scene, some bare-chested male rockers barely get through a few bars of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" before breaking for macho chatter demeaning to women.

In a sequence inspired by TV's "Sex and the City," several women strip down at a gym as they swap vapid comments about their own sexual exploits.

In a faux film documentary, Superamas spoof themselves via a fantasy of New York art-world success — complete with an ecstatic trip to a hip Manhattan bar resembling certain splashy beer commercials.

There is a formal postmodern design underlying "BIG" that promotes Brechtian distance and a cold, hard sense of glib soullessness.

The performers lip-sync to prerecorded dialogue, creating an eerie sense of disembodiment. And the rigidly choreographed gym and band rehearsal sequences are freeze-framed, interrupted and repeated with uncanny precision.

This is classic deconstructionism — capped off by a snippet of a recorded lecture by Jacques Derrida, a chief architect of France's literary deconstruction movement.

Of course, another "ism" lurks here too: existentialism, which reminds us that all our desperate pleasure-seeking is no refuge from the unavoidable car-crash of mortality.

"BIG" is extremely accomplished, as it also folds in references to the film "What's New, Pussycat?," touchy-feely encounter groups, ecstatic disco dancing and a Milan Kundera novel, all as it changes up the mood with folky balladeering.

But while the much-touted show may appear revelatory and novel, its hip-deep irony isn't for everyone — and not particularly fresh.

It is an extension of a European tradition of sharp critique evolved from Brecht, through the films of Godard and Antonioni, and the postmodern theories of Derrida and contemporary novelist Michel Houellebecq.

The Superamas show is not, of course, about happiness, but about cultural emptiness. And it may leave you feeling empty well before it ends.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com