Jennifer Chung Klam

San Diego Arts

Cirque du Soleil's 'Corteo"

By Jennifer Chung Klam
Posted on Jan 16 2008
Last updated Jan 25 2008

When a clown dies, it’s with a mixture of wistfulness, joy and colorful panache. So it is with the latest Cirque du Soleil production to roll into town, “Corteo,” about the last moments and memories of a circus clown. Though “Corteo” differs from previous productions in a number of ways, the show’s surreal visuals, soaring music and, of course, its breathtaking acrobatics place it recognizably in the Cirque canon.

Cirque du Soleil is generally known for reinventing the circus – removing the animals and creating theater with elaborate sets, lush costumes and live music. By now you’ve probably seen one of the many ubiquitous and wildly popular Cirque shows, either on tour or in one of the permanent Las Vegas installations. If you haven’t, don’t miss this opportunity. “Corteo” is one of the most thematically cohesive and visually sumptuous shows in the Montreal-based company’s repertoire.

And the characters actually speak English, rather than the Franco-English-Jabberwocky of its other productions.

Cirque shows typically have only the barest of frameworks – a character goes on a life-affirming journey through strange lands – that you can usually ignore in favor of the stunning acrobatics. That’s true here to a certain degree, but the thread running through the show is much more apparent. This is life filtered through the lens of a clown.

Swinging from chandeliers

Photo courtesy of Cirque du Soleil

The title is Italian for cortege, a ceremonial procession. The show is a sort of joyous funeral procession imagined by a dying clown, as attended by his circus colleagues and a bevy of flying angels in flowing robes. The stage bisects the tent, with audiences facing each other, providing a lengthy runway with exits on either side, well suited for a funeral procession.

“Corteo” opens with Jeff Raz as the unpainted clown lying in bed, trying to garner an appropriately solemn atmosphere for his imagined death. But such is not a clown’s life, nor death. The friends, lovers and fellow circus practitioners who surround him continually lapse into frolicking fun.

With our protagonist clown firmly set in the early 20th century, the show has a more realistic look. Gone are the fantastical costumes, wild makeup, otherworldly scenes and oversized set pieces. The rich, earth-tone costumes are strictly old world European, with a Pagliacci-type White Clown (Ira Seidenstein) and a classically styled ringmaster (a whistling virtuoso) in top hat, red tails and mustache.

Musical elements are also tinged with various European influences – gypsy, klezmer, flamenco, Italian opera – while lyrics are sung in a blend of Italian, French and Spanish.

The acrobats whirl, tumble and flip on more naturalistic set pieces, too. We get lingerie-clad women spinning on ornate chandeliers, a joyously rambunctious tumbling bit on trampoline beds, and performers rotating and balancing themselves within giant metal hoops.

Uzeyer Novruzov keeps steady on a leaning ladder – leaning on nothing – as he reaches toward the angel above him. Evgeniya Astashkina and Oleg Ouchakov perform a lovely acrobatic dance (like couples skating, without the skates) with a startling “gasp” moment near the end. Botakoz Bayatanova and Dmytro Turkeiev give the aerial straps a twist, with strong woman Bayatanova carrying her partner’s entire weight, by one foot while doing the splits, and even by her hair.

In the Helium Dance, diminutive Valentyna Paylevanyan drifts above the audience strapped to several large helium-filled balloons. As she comes to gently to a landing, audience members lifted up their hands as a platform. Off Paylevanyan would float in another direction leaving behind only childlike squealing and peals of laughter.

Dancing on air

Photo courtesy of Cirque du Soleil

The show also features very traditional circus acts like tightrope walking, trapeze, juggling and high bar, done in Cirque style.

Anastasia Bykovskaya walks a tightrope high above the stage – en pointe, then on a unicycle and then while twirling nearly a dozen hula-hoops. For her finale she walks up a wire at a steep incline.

One highlight is a spectacular flying trapeze bit that opens the second act. Performers in gauzy, flowing costumes vault down the length of the promenade doing flips on a long trampoline. The use of the trampoline is so fluid – as visual artistry, as a means to leap into the arms of the trapeze artists above – you forget about its double duty as a safety net.

In a number called the Tournik, four high bars form in a square in the center. More and more acrobats jump on the bars, until eight simultaneously swing and switch positions in a feat requiring precise timing. Still, “Corteo” needs a more spectacular sequence than this to close the show.

It is less than rousing elsewhere, too, like a ho-hum musical number using Tibetan bowls and crystal glasses (just skip to the whistling-violin face-off!). A life-sized puppet on an intricate system of pulleys could have been taken much further, as could the juggling number.

During the pre-show tomfoolery, a pair of clown undertakers find themselves in need of a body to fill their casket, so they go searching among the audience. Such endearing shenanigans are typical Cirque comedic fare. But other humorous bits fall flat: a sight gag where rubber chickens rain down onto the stage; a protracted mock staging of “Romeo & Juliet” featuring tiny performers Grigor and Valentyna Paylevanyan.

Yet these few sluggish moments don’t outweigh the wonder in “Corteo.” One thing Cirque du Soleil has always done exceedingly well is put together beautifully haunting stage images; and the memories of a clown walking a tightrope upside down, a nearly 7-foot, 400-pound giant delicately holding the hand of a midget, and a tiny woman tethered to oversized balloons will remain long after the show has packed up the grand chapiteau and moved on.

About the author: Jennifer Chung Klam is an editor at The Daily Transcript and a freelance arts and culture writer.
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Comments

Posted by Steve Ripley	January 17, 2008
The name of the Ringmaster is not Sean Lomax. Sean Lomax was the original however he has not been ith the show for well over a year.

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