Varekai (live show)

Cirque du Soleil
Le Grand Chapiteau, Moore Park (18th August, 2006)

A word of warning about possible bias - ever since Cirque du Soleil toured with 'Saltimbanco' in 1999 I have been fascinated with this troupe but have never managed to scrape together enough money to see a live show. Fortunately, I have a wonderful friend who bought tickets for my birthday, but due to unforeseen circumstances could not attend with me. I took my flatmate Sireesha and we both tiptoed into the tent...

Le Grand Chapiteau (Big Top) is a different world to the evening dark outside. An aura of palpable suspense hangs definitively from the rafters, much like the ropes for the various swings used in the show. From where we sat, a forest of silver-coloured poles populated our left field of vision, while the surprisingly small stage formed most of our right periphery. Unfortunately, there was a balustrade that divided them, unavoidably obstructive, even punctured, as it was, with diamond windows.

The pre-show entertainment ended up being part of the show itself. A comedian and his assistant spent several minutes acting as amusing ushers, using silent, slapstick humour to the laughter of the thickening crowd. Their double act recurred throughout the show to relieve some of the bated breath moments with chuckles, after tension had built during some of the more gasp-worthy scenes (most scenes, actually, but I'll get to that). One of the funniest scenes had the comedian being suave while mouthing the words to 'Ne Me Quitte Pas'. The spotlight moved him around the stage, made him cross the tent, enter the audience, run across the tent, climb a pole and finally, exit the Chapiteau at the end of the song.

The story of Varekai, meaning 'whatever' in gypsy language, is about a winged boy who falls into a forest near the mouth of a volcano, where many strange creatures live. The creatures help the boy recover and scene by scene he explores the community of these colourful characters until he is well enough to return to his homeland. There's isn't so much a plot as a loose story arc around which the scenes and costumes are designed, so I'm not even sure whether I presented that synopsis accurately. Whatever. As they say.

The imagery, however, is stunning. The set, virtually bare to allow the free movement of equipment and performers in and out of the space, flourishes with the teeming acrobats in vivid costumes. Some are comical and expressive, while others are elegant and dynamic. All, impressively, allow the performers to move fluidly side-to-side, around-and-around, upside-down and writhing-on-the-floor, according to their speciality.

The more gasp-worthy acts were airborne, using swings, drapes and ropes in various combinations. My favourite was a pair of acrobats with one rope each that circled and intertwined as they came together in formations that only experienced choreography could ever imagine. The human body is an amazing tool and Cirque du Soleil is a place where the body is expressed as art with the skill of the performer as the artist. The beauty is the dignity and dedication of each individual performer to their art and the manifestation of those traits in front of an appreciative audience.

Another to note was the youth act where three boys, aged about six to eight, each twirled a rope holding a bowl at each end. The instrument was twirled in various ways, thrown up and caught across the stage after each boy had executed a series of somersaults and flips across the floor. The impressive thing was not that each boy could do this, but they could do this simultaneously and not bump into each other.

The only act that made me feel weird rather than amazed was the contortionist, who didn't come on until quite late in the show. Her feats were pretty impressive (e.g. balancing, contorted, on a pole with a surface about the size of a hand) but I couldn't help feeling that it was a little bit wrong and couldn't quite shake the feeling.

Luckily, the final act was also the most exhilarating. The performers wheeled in two grounded swings with canoe-shaped pendulums facing the back of the performance space where they'd placed a stage, about 2.5m off the ground with rigged a canvas sail behind it. The acrobats started doing really cool things like swinging and somersaulting onto the platform and tumbling into the canvas sails. Then, when they got tired of that they started doing even cooler things like making a human pyramid on the stage and somersaulting onto that. As if that wasn't enough, they moved the pendulums so they were facing each other and started moving both of them such that an acrobat could somersault off one and land on the other. For the sit-tight-they're-not-really-going-to-do-it-oh-my-god-they-are moment one acrobat on each swing launched himself into the air and landed on the other swinging pendulum. Simultaneously. Without a mid-air collision. I almost bit my nails. You had to be there to believe it.

Needless to say, the troupe received rip-roaring applause that continued for several minutes. It was only then that I realised that the music that had accompanied the scenes had been playing LIVE at the back of the stage (to our far left, in the pole forest), which brings me to the only gripe about the evening. Price. We were sitting in B-reserve, partially obstructed by a balustrade and with a side view. If you wanted to pay $250 for a Tapis Rouge seat (front view), then the show would have given a depth of field that would have enhanced the acts, with the added stimulation of the backdrop. Unfortunately, most of the show played to the front view, which I found rather unfair. Next time, when I'm rich (or lucky enough to win tickets), I'll be sure to sit where there's a front view to get the most out of the experience. For now I think I'm lucky enough to see a Cirque du Soleil production. Too bad I couldn't afford anything in the gift shop either...