Cirque du Soleil - "Quidam"

"Quidam" presented by Cirque du Soleil at Barclay's Center, July 25, 2013

In a tentless production, Cirque returns to NY with the long-running Quidam for a short stint at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn.

Quidam, which means "anonymous passerby" originally opened in 1996, converting to its current format for arena staging in 2010 (thanks, Wikipedia!).

When I first discovered Cirque years ago, I was a huge fan, anxiously waiting to find out when the next tour would be performing nearby.  After the third or fourth production, however, my enthusiasm waned.  Perhaps the novelty had worn off compared to the ticket price.

The various acts are ostensibly connected with a through-line story of Zoe, "...bored yet curious, and she longs for the fun and excitement she believes lie just beyond her reach."  Based on how the ensemble moves from white-hooded oompa-loompas to dirty ragged eastern Euro ghetto residents, I failed to connect the fun and excitement.  The most intriguing aspect I found was the aerial rigging system created for this arena version which allows performers to fly in from behind the stage, or remain suspended for extended periods of time.

Of the elements, the ensemble acts fared best in an impressive double-dutch rope jumping segment early in Act 1, and a tumbling/balancing/acrobatic piece at the end described as a Banquine.  The hand balancing, aerial silks, aerial ropes and hoops acts were all merely interesting.  Even the balancing pair, stripped to their skivvies lacked enough sensuality to raise it to truly remarkable.  More disappointing was the clown routine, which I'm pretty sure I had seen in another Cirque production along the way.

On a related note, this was my first visit to the Barclay's Center.  Subway transportation to and from is particularly easy and the facility is quite impressive.

This stop on the tour ends on July 28. 

Banana Shpeel

"Banana Shpeel" presented by Cirque du Soleil at the Beacon Theatre, May 23, 2010

Cirque du Soleil, having turned the concept of circus on its head, creating a international brand and establishing permanent productions around the world, has finally opened its production of Banana Shpeel for an open-ended run at the gloriously restored Beacon Theater on the upper west side in New York.  Cirque has, of course, visited New York regularly with its traveling productions.  Given the opportunity to attract the tourist dollar, it's easy to see the advantage of a site-specific production here.

Cirque's productions all follow the same general concept of various acts of contortion, juggling, and acrobatics interspersed with a running clown theme, accompanied by ethereal, new age-style music and singers.  For NY, they took what might have been an interesting concept of a vaudeville theme to form the arc of this production.  Vaudeville has been dead for a long time, and it's dead for a reason.  Writer and director David Shiner is unable to revive it in the not funny framework he has created.  As production problems leaked to the press earlier this year, several show doctors reportedly came through to fix the issues. 

Based on what I sat through this afternoon, this piece is DOA.  Cirque seems to have made the mistake of forgetting what the do well and throwing away a lot of time and money on what they don't.  I get the idea of trying to create a "Broadway-style" version for NY.  But, I don't get why they didn't realize it isn't going to work.  The actual acts are up to Cirque's usual standards: interesting and unique, impeccably performed by visually attractive artists.

Further, the show is billed as "family-friendly," with which I must disagree based on a handful of off-color lines including, "...open a can of shut the f*** up,"  bleeped perhaps, but fully recognizable nonetheless.  The clown wearing the trenchcoat and only red briefs underneath is flasher-perv creepy, not comic relief. The Cirque website says, "This show is not recommended for children under eight years old. Children under the age of five are not permitted in the theater."  Apparently, no one told the staff at the Beacon.  I saw plenty of kids under 8 and heard what sounded like at least one infant in the audience.

One more gripe about the Beacon staff - inexplicably, the entire audience was forced to exit the building through a single back door onto Amsterdam Avenue.

Still, I like the idea of a presence for Cirque in New York, much in the sense of the permanent productions in Las Vegas and Orlando.  Hopefully they will be back with something that works next time.  As my friend R quipped, "Cirque has slipped on its own Banana Shpeel."

Banana Shpeel is scheduled to run through August 29.