Wow.
I’m referring to Cirque Voila! at Northshore Performing Arts Center last Sunday. If they brought out the kid in you, wow! If they didn’t, ho-hum.
Here is a touring company featuring hi-tech effects in support of some sparks of originality but not enough to light your fire, not unless you were seeing circus for the first time and I wasn’t.
With exceptions.
The show-topping highlight, hands down, was an absolutely brilliant Amanda Crockett. Whether cavorting and contorting on a high trapeze or twisting like a pretzel while rolling a derby, end over end, up and down her string-bean limbs, this straw-haired scarecrow is a one of a kind who does it all. If circus is about thrills, chills, spills and laughs, this gal is the real thing. Plus, she mimes like a mirror. Who among us has never felt like a dope?
The Blue Boys, Aaron Easterbrooks &James Maltman, got a little too silly for me although kids around me got a kick out of their innocuous ways. On the other hand, their shtick with an elastic rope strung tight back and forth across the stage caught us all off guard. One let go of the rope, it zipped back and forth quicker than the eye could follow and, on the last zip back, pulled with it a big ball that bopped the other one on the head. Slapstick? Yes. Nonsense? Yes. Hilarious? Can’t deny it.
Michael Menes’ man with four legs, a hoot none can argue about. His shenanigans behind a row of waist-high screens — man appearing to descend and ascend an escalator, which speeds up and slows down, for example — I’ve seen a hundred times. His still got to me.
Dramatic music made no difference. Feats of strength by muscle man and, at one-time, Cirque du Soleil headliner, Jean-Francois Martel, didn’t go an awful long way. As a specimen of body building, however, the man is impressive. Wouldn’t want to tangle with him.
Kimberly Olson-Wheeler’s contortions with a hula hoop and ballet on rope while wrapping and unwrapping in a long, silk ribbon, so-so.
Greg Frisbee’s escape from a straight jacket, humor so understated I couldn’t find it.
Overall, this was a mixed bag with mixed moments. The good ones connected. The not so good brought to mind the days of chariot races and gladiators fighting to the death in ancient Rome, of jugglers and jesters and knights jousting in the Dark Ages and of trick riders on horseback and elephants and sawdust and P.T. Barnum.
One way or another, the evening with Circe Voila! brought out the kid in me. So, wow! Thanks NPAC.
Reactions? Comments? E-mail Dale Burrows at entfeatures@heraldnet.com or grayghost7@comcast.net.
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