Le Grand Cirque
In Sydney last January, Le Grand Cirque made a big impact with its designed-for-theatre circus spectacular and its return this January has been “eagerly anticipated” with “Aerial Dreams”.
The show is reasonably well suited to the Opera House Concert Hall auditorium with its height and semi-round configuration, although the manically-shrieking swinging woman sort of got lost in the lighting rig at the top of her trajectory; but so violent was her enthusiasm it didn’t matter much.
For the younger members of the audience the show starts rather slowly with much laboured clowning around and awkward audience participation (why do these circuses all think it’s funny to have an unfunny bloke making an ass of himself and some other paying sucker?). Once the acrobatics get going it’s impressive, however, with rubber-spined and apparently death-defying artists doing the most amazing things with lengths of red fabric and various other unlikely props.
The “strong-man (and woman) acts are also gasp-making. The virtues of sharing are well illustrated for the tot end of the audience when about a dozen scarlet-clad muscular nymphs climb aboard one bicycle, ridden by a smiling geezer with thighs like steam engine pistons.
Although there is a lot of moody prancing and they could cut the second formal bow routine (if you don’t clap to their liking they demand better) it’s a good show, if not great. The lighting is spectacular, the acts keep coming and it’s impossible not to “ooh!” and “aah!” at the feats of daring. Nevertheless, the first half is more … um … subtle than the second and there is no attempt to do a Cirque du Soleil or Circus Oz and make a story or characters out of any of it. This is not necessarily a criticism: it’s good old-fashioned acrobatic and tumbling, in the main, and virtually all of the best are clearly of Asian origin. The few Caucasians in the troupe are galumphing elephants in comparison, which is interesting in an odd way.
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One warning: if you buy the $15 souvenir program for your small person there will be disappointment because although they’re spruiking a “brand new show” it’s full of spectacular photos of previous shows: most of the exotic costuming is not on stage this time. Times might be frugal but that’s just not fair and not easy to explain to a 5-year-old.
Le Grand Cirque Sydney Opera House Concert Hall January 5-18; www.sydneyoperahouse.com
