TORONTO -- Yeah, yeah, we know -- beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 But we also know, if we've thought much about it, that in today's mass media world, notions of beauty have become pretty homogenized.

 It is that homogeneous, standardized idea of beauty that perhaps most offends Valeska Gert, an imaginary character plucked from real life by playwright Morwyn Brebner.

 Gert -- or at least a ficitionalized version of the one-time German actor and performer -- now lives at the heart of Brebner's play, Music For Contortionist, which opened at the Tarragon Extra Space on Tuesday night, a co-production of Tarragon and the Shaw Festival.

 In what is essentially a 75-minute piece of performance art, Gert is played by Shaw veteran Nora McLellan -- and it is, very intentionally, not a pretty performance.

 Costumed in a cheap satin uniform -- a cross between a dirndl and an exercise middy from another era -- McLellan is all lurid makeup and awkward physicality as she takes her audience on a freefall through the artist's mind.

 Only occasionally does she interrupt her rant on the nature of beauty to indulge in self-induced hypnotic trances designed to show us the tortured inner workings of the character's mind. During these forays into the subconscious, Gert's words and bizarre imaginings (as imagined in turn by the playwright) are underscored by the sinuous movements of contortionist Jinny J. Jacinto, performing in semi-obscurity behind a gauze-like scrim. Set and costumes are designed by Brian Smith, lighting by Beth Kates.

 Set in a New York nightclub, circa 1956, this is a very in-your-face show, as McLellan's Gert describes her life-long war on conventional perceptions of beauty -- a 'holy' crusade she claims was launched when her mother destroyed all of her extensive doll collection, save for the ones deemed prettiest.

 But where Gert's real-life shows were likely to offend, this one is mostly amusing -- a combined result of evolving societal mores and McLellan's broad comedic approach.

 It is an approach on which director Eda Holmes, who suggested the idea for the show to the playwright, capitalizes.

 And for a while, it works, although one can't help but wonder why they retained a suggestion that Gert was too small to succeed as a chorus girl when they had cast the unquestionably Juno-esque McLellan in the role.

 McLellan's style, however, is more raunchy American burlesques or broad British music hall than European cabaret, which is rooted in a studied, more sophisticated ennui.

 As a performance, Music For Contortionist is finally a small triumph for McLellan. As a piece of theatre that challenges its audience to look deeper, shocking us to redefine conventional notions of order and beauty, it is less so.

 It gets you singing along -- but surely it was Gert's intention and the playwright's to teach us a whole new tune.

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