CMU The cast for "Sideshow" includes Liam Rhodes (Sixth Exhibit), Antwayn Hopper (Jake), Barrett Davis (Geek) and Roberta Burke (Fortune Teller), here framing Kirsten Bracken (Daisy) and Kara Lindsay (Violet) in pre-makeover mode. Click photo for larger image. 'Sideshow' Where: Carnegie Mellon University Drama at Philip Chosky Theatre, Purnell Center, Oakland. When: 8 p.m. through Fri.; Sat. 2 and 8 p.m. Tickets: $12-$27; 412-268-2407.

Freaks are a surefire attraction, either directly through freak shows or secondarily, when the fascination becomes the subject of exploration.

Of course, we're much more squeamish now; our carnivals are more sanitized. Even the label "freak" seems like a slur. But look at TV or film and you'll see the attraction of freaks still sells, under different guises.

Sometimes it's hard to tell what sells most, the direct experience or the indirect commentary, or which is which. Witness the photographs of Diane Arbus, which are simultaneously both, offering experience of abnormality while distancing it with the science or sympathy of observation.

Or take the 1997 musical "Side Show," with book and lyrics by Bill Russell and music by Henry Krieger, which is now being given an elaborate staging at Carnegie Mellon. Here, as with "The Elephant Man," we are brought inside the world of the supposed freak to discover the human being. But even as we deplore the objectification and exploitation of abnormality, we still feel the fascination. So it is not surprising that these plays accuse our fascination of being freakish, evidence of the mix of normal and abnormal in us all.

Focusing on Daisy and Violet Hilton, English-born conjoined twins who became American carnival and vaudeville attractions in the 1930s, "Side Show" starts out in a sleazy show run by an abusive boss whom I'd call sub-human if the point weren't that humanity does reach so low.

Promoter Terry and musician Buddy free the twins and turn them into a popular act. The press reacts with cynicism, exploitation and prejudice. And when Terry and Buddy find themselves amorously involved with the twins, complications ensue. For a while "Side Show" seems like a replay of Krieger's own "Dreamgirls," with Terry playing the role of the Svengali who manipulates the women at the expense of their feelings.

Hard on the heels of Point Park's "Ragtime," "Side Show" is a reminder that some of Pittsburgh's strongest musical theater takes place in our drama schools. Guest director Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj and musical director Thomas Douglas lead a cast of 15 in an in-your-face depiction of side-show sleaze, followed by glamorous flashes of vaudeville glitter. On the large Chosky Theater stage, the ambitious CMU designers portray both with a baroque melange of mist, drapery, strings of lights and feathers.

Kirsten Bracken and Kara Lindsay play Daisy and Violet with great contrast in personality, swinging easily from comedy to despair. Stephen Rosenberg has handsome weight and sufficient complexity as Terry, with a powerful voice that is matched only by Antwayn Hopper's as Jake, the twins' best friend, a black man who experiences his own parallel prejudice.

Nine performers play the other freaks (reptile man, bearded lady, near-naked Harem girl, etc.), who are some combination (never made clear) of physical deviance and make-believe. These performers also double as everyone else, such as the well-to-do New Year's Eve revelers who seem pretty freakish themselves.

This is a preview of the musical's end, in which the freaks gather to stare at the audience, making it clear we are freaks, too, holding that accusatory stance while the audience uneasily rises in a standing O and then slowly, even more uneasily, departs.

That's just too easy. If it's true, doesn't it make what we've seen the moral equivalent of what it so righteously deplores? And if we're freaks, aren't we due sympathetic consideration, too?

In this, Maharaj directs with a heavy hand. In contrast, the Broadway production had a sparer feel, leaving more up to the audience, not throwing it in our face.

But I cannot overpraise the performances, for which Maharaj is also responsible. And musically, "Side Show" soars, lifted by a dozen-strong orchestra.

CMU advises patrons about the strobe, mist, nudity and strong themes.