Punk group utilizes Peter Lorre

Jack Terricloth specializes in absorbing entertainments.

The lead vocalist's famed World/Inferno Friendship Society punk group brings its multi-media spectacle "Addicted to Bad Ideas: Peter Lorre's 20th Century" to the Emmett Robinson Theatre for a five-day Spoleto Festival run beginning tonight.

Directed by Jay Scheib, the band's "cabaret punk-rock operetta," replete with archaic pop-culture references, employs the figure of the late Hungarian-American actor Peter Lorre to suggest "the ultimate 20th-century archetype of alienation."

"If not exactly the band's mascot, Lorre has been something of a muse for them on many levels," said Scheib, who is collaborating with WIFS for the first time.

"Photos of Lorre have been used in the band's cover art on previous albums, and these pieces in this show have been gestating over a long period."

Among the most familiar, distinctive and caricatured actors of Hollywood's Golden Age, Lorre (1904-1964) first made waves internationally in the disturbing German film "M," playing a serial killer who preyed on children.

The role would typecast him for decades, even in films as disparate as "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), "Casablanca" (1942) and "Arsenic and Old Lace" (1944), on through a spate of cheesy horror movies of the early 1960s.

Lorre's latter years were a gradual accretion of misery: morphine addiction, founding and losing his own production company, dwindling screen opportunities and disillusionment.

Terricloth and his fellow New York musicians' stage show is an outgrowth of the band's sixth CD, "Addicted to Bad Ideas," which charts Lorre's fall from a star character actor of the stage and screen into depression, alarming weight fluctuations, bankruptcy and addiction.

"I consider it to be an extension of the album," said Scheib. "We do follow the songs from the CD, but we also added to them. There are scenes that happen between most of the songs which are all additional elements.

"Many of these scenes are meant to carry the equivalent concept of the songs in terms of following Lorre's life across two world wars and beyond."

The Brooklyn-based act has a penchant for songs exploring revolutionary figures and eras in modern annals, having focused on such famous (or infamous) luminaries as pioneering African-American actor Paul Robeson and controversial filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl ("Triumph of the Will").

WIFS melds punk, cabaret and classical music with arcane cinematic lore in tunes such as "M Is for Morphine" (riffing on the joys and sorrow of Lorre's personal life), "I Just Make Faces," "Cathy Catharine" and "Everybody Comes to Rick's."

"With a Good Criminal Heart," meanwhile, frames Lorre's characteristic roles as villain, victim, weasel or lovable scoundrel.

WIFS is at least as concerned with the consuming, often debilitating nature of celebrity.

"I find the band's music to be really complex and cohesive," Scheib said. "After meeting them I really fell in love with what they were up to, their energy and who they are.

"I am always very interested in working on theatrical performances that cut across boundaries, that are mixed media in some ways. This was a great opportunity."

Reach Bill Thompson at bthompson@postandcourier.com or 937-5707.