When the four men strut onto the stage in their bright orange outfits, they look as if they have just been Tangoed - but this miserable fate is nothing compared with the botched executions, penile dementia, and unfortunate escapades with sheep that contribute to a production guaranteed to get any hen-party clucking.
Set on death row, its Spanish director David Ottone claims that it investigates the darker side of human nature, but to describe it as any more than a bottom show with attitude would be seriously misleading.
Once you have hurled any expectations of Wildean wit out of the window, it is possible to become quite engrossed - with the emphasis on grossed - in a production that plays joyfully with the audience's squeamishness, evoking the spirit of carnival. The contents of bedpans are sprinkled liberally over the crowd, while giant erect penises throw enough sperm to repopulate China across the auditorium, and even though each audience member knows that the only fluid to hit them is water, the illusion created is such that the air resounds to amused expressions of disgust.
Yllana's 666 may sound like an 18-30s holiday gone badly wrong, but the physical comedy - which ranges from a beau-tifully choreographed hanging scene to a phallic obsession almost on a par with the Ancient Greeks - is executed with precision and skill. Actors Ben Bishop, Russell Edwards, Derek Elroy, and Mark Keemar Smith do not speak - instead they grunt: one like a constipated cow, one like a defiant warthog, one like an impotent mouse, and one like a member of the Mafia on his fifth bottle of wine - creating a surprisingly strong character definition, considering their dialogue is
down the dunny. Audience members are far from safe, and there is at least one girl a night dragged up onto the stage, in order - supposedly - to have sex with Bishop's decidedly foppish portrayal of a convict.
There is a thin line between obtuse laddishness and teasing basic humour out of even the most sophisticated facade, but although the company occasionally crosses this line, it plays with a tradition of obscenity that would make Rabelais proud.
666
