GDFAF: Cirque du Soleil Delirium

Wednesday 10 October, 2007

#GDFAF: Cirque du Soleil Delirium

I made the mistake, earlier this afternoon, of reading a review of the show I was about to go and see. What the hell was I thinking? Worse, it wasn't a good review either. Never read a review of something you are committed to seeing. No good can come of it.

As I left the arena at the end of the evening, I recalled Gordon Ramsay's question after receiving a bad review in the New York Times. "Is he so jaded," wondered Ramsay of the Times' restaurant critic, "that a truffle is ordinary?"

Circus is about the physical. It might have the trappings of theatre, with costumes, make-up, lights, and music, but it's about the physical. You go to the circus to see people do things you haven't seen before, that appear impossible and yet there they are.

Cirque du Soleil has the theatrical trappings, in spades, on a huge, almost overwhelming, scale. There were several occasions where I completely missed some large prop coming onto the stage, because my attention was elsewhere. At one point, after watching a stiltwalker who had just processed through the audience, I turned back to the stage and was startled that it was now filled, as if from nowhere, with people.

All that would have been for nothing though without the acrobatics and gymnastics to go with it, and it surely did. There was some fantastic, really fantastic, balancing, a long sequence of rhythmic gymnastics, and any amount of corde lisse, even a hula-hooper.

If Cirque du Soleil has a failing, it is that it doesn't put these astonishing physical feats front and centre. There is no ringmaster asking the audience for quiet, no drum-roll and tight spotlight, no gentle reminder of the difficulty and danger of what you are about to see. By integrating them into such a huge stage, with dancers, singers, and musicians, with projections either side of the stage and often across the stage itself, I do wonder if it actually sells itself a little short.

And yet there they are.

anonymous said Cirque Delirium at the NIA.

I'd waited 10 years to see a Cirque performance, and BOY was I disappointed.

It didn't help that we'd paid Ł55 for the best tickets and yet found ourselves seated in 'A' block, which was situated in the forgotten blackhole that was to the extreme left of the very very left edge of the stage. The NIA should not be allowed to overfill the arena to this level, if I'd have been given the tickets free I'd have still expected a better view. We couldn't see a thing but there were people with even worse seats than us!! After 15 minutes we moved seats.

One plus point: The multi-media lightshow was mesmerising - massive & awesome, I'd have preferred to have watched this all evening. It blew me away.

The drumming scenes were incredible, but most of the music was a mix of ear jarring crazy jazzy mash; the vocals were shrill and unclear, making it impossible to follow any hint of a story.

Despite knowing the thread of the story before going, I found the storyline to be muddled & disjointed, like what I imagine an LSD drugged infused nightmare would be like.

There were some daring aerial acrobatics; but mainly the performers gently floated across stage, which (even at 52) I could have coped with.

Costumes: Many were dull and uninspired, and apart from a couple of extra-special ones - none had stage impact.

The stage was massive but apart from the odd piece of scenery - it was quite boring.

Choreography: There must have been some - but most of the performers just ran about the stage doing their own thing, making for ongoing messy and ugly scenes. The scenes where the dancing was supposed to be synchronised, weren't.

Main Points to Note:

If you haven't bought tickets yet - think twice - don't bother.

Can I suggest some reading for all the arty-farty critics out there who jumped on the "this show is fabulous" bandwagon. I suggest they read "The Emperors New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson" ... maybe this sweet little fairy tale would help them see the error of their ways and open their eyes to honesty. [added 24th Mar 2008]

If I'd been in a different frame of mind, I can see that I would have come to the same conclusions. And yes, they did overfill the arena, and I'd have been pretty angry if we'd ended up out in the corner there somewhere.

It is expensive. For me, the gap between buying the tickets and seeing the show was about seven or eight months, so I'd already got over the pain of the price. That probably helped.

But I did enjoy myself. I don't know if I'd go again, but I enjoyed it on the night. Sorry :)

[added 24th Mar 2008]

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