You'd better believe it. The whole show is played out in a tank of water, holding about 57,000 gallons. Yessir. The show ends before you've got used to this astonishing statistic, and you are not helped in your recovery by the fact that special effect is piled on special effect.
The sad remnants of society drift by in their upturned fridges and crashed planes, but the Dutch Vis a Vis company have much more to do than give swimming lessons: perspectives are thrown all over the place by a tiny city and a tiny plane lifting off the water; by a huge volcano which dwarfs a floating carry-cot which had been life-size minutes before; by an enormous ark in shadow against a screen, filled with hilarious singing shadow animals; and, nearly best of all, by a distant disco echoing across the water, with silly little dancing dolls skittering back and forth on it, like the figurines on an old-fashioned music box.
It's the end of society as we know it and it ain't pretty. Eventually, the upper classes' planes run out of fuel and crash to an earth where credit cards have no meaning. And so there's an almighty scramble for survival. Instead of Adam and Eve, there's a tacky couple (Aad Spee and Marianne Seihe), he corpulent, bald and sleazy, she towering, meretricious and devious. When she is sawn in half and floats away in two pieces (yes), he swims after her, well, lower half, while the animals sing at the rest of her: "What, no ass!"
The show is a breath-taking achievement. But the wonder stems as much from the frogman in the tank as from the black comedy. In fact, it has very little to say. It's a case of presentation is all, and that, for once, is enough.