If someone asked me if I wanted to sit down and watch a short musical about a man who has a torrid affair with a dead fish in his childhood bedroom after returning to his mother’s home after being kicked out by his wife, I probably would have said, “Run that by me again?”
Chambliss and Zach Daniel’s Forbidden Catch: An Aquatic Affair is a short musical that is the story of a man, discarded by his wife, taken back in by his mum, and who is discovered to have had a torrid affair with his pet fish, Brian.
Once you get past the lunacy and settle in, the theatre-like setting together with curiously giggle-rousing songs helps make this sad, yet triumphant, exclamation on the acceptance of one’s own strange and the levels of depravity of h***y young man will sink (pardon the pun) to fulfill his carnal delights truly a musical event that one would pray might be expanded.
The cast of Forbidden Catch: An Aquatic Affair in a tense on-stage moment.
“A man, discarded by his wife, taken back in by his mum, and who is discovered to have had a torrid affair with his pet fish, Brian.”
Like all good art, it poses more questions than it answers. For instance, there is Christian’s fractured relationship with his now-deceased father. The distance between him and his mother. (Although if your mum caught you shagging a dead fish, I could see the reason for awkwardness.) And then there’s the exploration of how Christian came to love fish in the pure yet erotically morbid fashion.
Still, if you’re looking for a musical that hits all the right notes on a subject that probably won’t make polite dinner conversation, this is the short for you. Forbidden Catch: An Aquatic Affair is a brief and wacky foray, with musical numbers, into a twisted romance gone wrong, and definitely something fishy going on.
"…won't make polite dinner conversation..."
