It’s probably just a function of Spoleto’s institutional branding, but when you looked at the materials for 1927’s Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, did you not get the sense that the production was some sort of experimental, edgy theater piece? Funny, certainly, but perhaps with some added bit of theatrical gravitas?

An ingeniously dark and peculiar blend of fairytale and silent - movie homage where live performance effortlessly merges with pre-recorded film, London-based cabaret company 1927’s Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is a wonderfully surreal journey through a variety of skewed and often sinister landscapes.

Yep. Kinda vague, but definitely leaning toward the gravitas.

Here’s a shorter definition of what Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea really was (sadly, it’s gone already): A comedy. As in it was funny, it was intended to make us laugh, and it succeeded, over and over.

The reason that you might struggle to make that critical diagnosis is that it’s so inventively, darkly, wickedly funny that it doesn’t act like a comedy, with all the goofball conventions that automatically identify comedy as lowbrow and fun and a little embarrassing.

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