Twin Cities Horror Festival XIII Day 8 Review: Schaulust

With this final show I have attended all of the TCHF XIII productions and yet somehow I still didn’t get a Bingo. Oh well, sometimes it just isn’t in the cards. Besides I think the prize was a toothbrush and who the hell wants that, am I right? We want candy!!! I have to say that for the first time in my TCHF attendance which began in 2019, there wasn’t a single show that I had to write a bad review about. Hey they weren’t all great, but there wasn’t a bad one in the bunch. The more amazing thing, and what shows that this years producers were real risk takers, is that Allison Vincent wasn’t in any of them. Last year that was the one ingredient that guaranteed a hit show, so for no one to have cast her in a show was a very ballsy move. You can read my reviews of everyone of the productions in this years festival which continues through 11/4/24 at The Stages of MN. For more information and to purchase tickets to the remaining shows go to https://www.tchorrorfestival.com/

Schaulust written and performed by Keith Hovis is part musical, part horror show, and all character study of an unstable mind. Hovis plays Wyatt a man who likes to watch, not in a creepy sexual way, but in a creepy everyday kind of way. He describes how it led to his break up with his boyfriend, though it wasn’t the watching part, the boyfriend was fine with that, it was something else, his need to not be needed. After the break up he finds a couple of people online who need money and agree to install a camera in their homes so he can watch them in exchange for money. Again not in a creepy sexcam way, just watch them playing video games, cutting their nails, sleeping on the couch. I’m not sure who to credit with the scenic design but it’s extremely well done. Wyatt’s home is a window into his fraying and disintegrating mental health. You can see the benefit of Schaulust playing in the Studio space, it has allowed for a fairly elaborate design, which really does inform our understanding of the narrator. It’s also one of the handful of shows that has some real horror elements, which I always think is a nice touch at the horror fest. It’s well written and acted, Hovis’ performance is all in and his songs were perfectly suited to the material. It’s one of the most polished and effective shows of the entire festival and I can say that because I saw them all!