Cirque Du Soseaux.
As I sat in my seat at the Verizon Center last night watching a performance of "Delerium" by Cirque Du Soleil, I was mesmerized by the incredible stuff going on before my eyes. Surrealistically dreamlike images colorfully wafted across the stage. Driving, organic live music rhythmically churned through my gut. A bevy of freakishly skilled (and sculpted - wowza!) acrobats did things I’d never even imagined people could do with their bodies. There were many moments that made me miss the developmental cabaret theater style in which I loved to participate while studying drama at Duke. We would throw the unique talents and passions of the diverse cast members into a mixing bowl along with multilingual songs and texts that held meaning to us, stir it all up, and cook up something strangely stageworthy whose undeniable power came from the palpable emotional connection between the artists and the art. Those shows were jaw-droppingly entertaining and heart-skippingly moving.
But while I definitely found myself enchanted by the aspects of "Delerium" which I mentioned above, I can’t honestly say that the show moved me. Perhaps some of this is due to the near-nosebleeds where we were sitting, but quite frankly, I just kept thinking how underwhelming a lot of it was. And I’m not sure I should’ve been underwhelmed by most of it. The projections which danced across the scrim in front of the stage were frequently stunning, but then two seconds later I’d be reminded of some run-of-the-mill desktop screensaver I’d seen. The dancing was good even when there was no mind-boggling contortionist on stage to twist my imagination, but good dancing can be seen on a handful of primetime reality shows with a mere flick of the remote.
And then there was the singing. To someone who has been on a few cruises in his life, the jarringly out-of-place singing in last night’s show felt a bit too cruise-shippy. Aside from many of the admittedly catchy and well-sung songs being far too lyrically linear and downright "American" for a show that would’ve benefitted from a total surrender to Eurasian surrealism, the stupid cameras tended to focus on the downright unremarkable sight of the singers. This resulted in gigantic images of ho-hum vocalists on the screens abutting the stage, while the marvelous acrobats remained relatively microscopic to the naked eye. Call me crazy, but I would’ve preferred the magnifying glass to be transfixed upon the four silver-Speedoed hotties who essentially defied gravity for five minutes, not the forgettable face of the mic-holding singer who just kinda stood there, um, singing. At least for this show, unlike many a cruise ship revue, the singing was in-key.
So am I just jaded? Or was it our seats? Our was it this particular show? Whatever the reason(s) may be, I couldn’t shake the feeling that, with a name like Cirque Du Soleil, the show should’ve been a little bit more - wait for it - Punky.
I’ve actually been waiting for eight years to see Cirque Du Soleil, so perhaps the expectations were impossible to meet. I first heard of them around this time of year back in 1999, a mere day or two before I was unceremoniously dumped by Brandon, the one person I’ve ever really called a boyfriend. [For more on him, click here.] He and I were in Orlando laying the groundwork what was (not) going to be an eventual move to Miami together. While hanging out in Downtown Disney or whatever that little area is called, we stumbled upon an actual Cirque Du Soleil theater there where various shows of theirs are performed year-round. I’d never heard of them before, so I went into the Cirque store and saw some images and postcards and stuff, and I was immediately intrigued by what I saw. We tried to buy tickets, but of course they were sold out for the foreseeable future. Brandon told me not to worry, we’d see a show of theirs sooner or later.
Now it’s eight years later, and I can finally cross it off the list. If for that alone, the show was amazing.
[NOT EVEN SIX DEGREES: Brandon also happens to be the name of the dog of Punky Brewster, a character played by Soleil Moon Frye, whose first name is the same as the Cirque, which I first discovered with Brandon.... Quelle trippy, dudes!]
