Above the doorway to El Galpón de Catalinas, on a scruffy corner of La Boca, spills a riotous depiction of a theatre audience in rapture.
Below the scene, a crowd rugged up against the cold mingles over cake and choripán amid swirling parrilla smoke.
It’s 11pm on a Saturday and the file along the freezing street shares an inability to resist a basic urge: to know the naughty pleasures of pornographic puppetry.
The occasion is the penultimate night of Al Sur del Sur 2007, the second International Puppet Festival held in Buenos Aires.
The two-week festival, which brought together 28 shows by theatre companies from eight different countries, would reach its conclusion on 5th August.
Organisers put on performances for all ages, including schoolchildren on their winter break.
But make no mistake: tonight’s show is strictly adults only.
‘Títeres Porno’, the latest show by Buenos Aires theatre group 69 A La Cabeza, promises to bring the hottest fantasies to the stage.
And, true to their word, the five actors who make a raunchy entrance to the strains of Lady Marmalade will depart an hour later following a chain of climaxes and an orgy of laughs.
The show presents a series of staple scenarios from so-called adult entertainment on a spot-lit table draped in black.
Each begins with well-controlled comedy as characters awkwardly begin their acquaintance before their gradual and inevitable descent into carnal knowledge.
Thus we have the modest, obliging maid spilling whisky on the lap of her sleazy estanciero master, or the tough-talking PFA agent quizzing an assault victim with a uniform fetish.
The cop’s procedure manual soon goes out the window, and he deviates wildly from the letter of the law in the crime reconstruction.
The sketches are broken up by brief musical interludes and a delightfully warped rendition of a popular Spanish ballad.
Actors Mayra Carlos, Carolina Tejeda, Cecilia Villamil, Sebastián Terragni and Ariel Bottor display a great flair for visual and verbal comedy, milking laughs as much from the subtleties of the mating ritual as from slapstick screams and moans.
The titillation is twofold. It exists in observing the foibles and fantasies of the puppets, who are capable of far more expression than their moulded features would suggest.
This includes the odd deadpan stare at a complicit audience as they realise they are edging ever closer to having their wicked way.
But equally engaging are the facial contortions and vocal expressions of their masters, who convey the puppets’ pleasure with a conviction conspicuously lacking in the ‘art form’ they are spoofing.
The finale is odd as it is funny, and not a million miles from unique.
A buff young plumber turns up to fix the sink of a horny housewife, all innuendo and fluffy pink dressing gown.
The scene descends into a sexual free-for-all when the husband comes home to catch the pair in flagrante.
Each member of the cast, intertwined and out of breath, is on hand to eke out every orgasm with ecstatic precision.
The auditorium is like a live re-enactment of the anarchy and alegría portrayed on the theatre’s façade, but the cold night air is long forgotten in the heat of the moment.
And although there’s no one rolling in the aisles, I swear there are some who’d like to be.
69 A La Cabeze perform at Te Mataré Ramirez aphrodisiac restaurant, Paraguay 4062, every Tuesday and Thursday at 10pm.