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 horny 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..."
