CIRKOPOLIS | STAGE REVIEW
Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay, Wed 8 Apr
The audience knows they’re in for an unconventional circus experience when a video projection of a vast, black and white city skyline appears menacingly, recalling Fritz Lang’s classic 20s film, Metropolis. Is it Berlin – or New York? The location remains nameless, as do the thirteen characters in Cirque Éloize’s production of Cirkopolis.
Looming skyscrapers and an industrial complex with huge cogs, wheels and long corridors are shown behind a lone man (UK native Ashley Carr). He sits at his desk stamping piles of papers that administrators and workers keep adding to. Robot-like, they rush to and fro, walking backward and forward. Drabness. Repetitiveness. Some of the crowd may be thinking, ‘Monday morning.’
This is the world constructed by Montreal-based Cirque Éloize’s Jeannot Painchaud, artistic and also co-director along with choreographer Dave St. Pierre. They’ve also combined elements of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Franz Kafka’s written works to illustrate the tedious hours of pencil-pushers everywhere.
All is not lost, though. The artists of this contemporary circus broke through all the gloominess to show free-will and individual creativity in a dozen vignettes adeptly demonstrating their various skills including acrobatics, balancing and dancing.
An ethereal yet strong woman (Léa Toran Jenner) in a flowing red dress keeps us spellbound while she twists and turns nimbly in a Cyr wheel. The ensemble breaks out and shows spontaneous high-jinks in the office, speedily juggling and throwing pins sitting and standing. Men show their prowess using a German wheel (a device that looks like a circular ladder). Contortionist Maria Combarros shows her dexterity and ballet skills – seemingly floating on air with the help of five male artists. Dutch juggler Joris De Jong displays a sunny and this-is-so-much-fun attitude while not breaking rhythm once.
Other highlights include clown of the troupe Carr in a poignant pas de deux involving a clothes rack, hangers and a dress and feisty firecracker Maude Arseneault, with Mikaël Bruyère-Labbé and Olivier Poitras displaying their saucy agility and quickness on the Chinese pole.
The encore was an explosive mixture of the multi-disciplinary cast showing their acrobatic expertise on the seesaw-like teeterboard and also launching themselves off desks, file cabinets – and each other – jumping and balancing with nary a slip-up.
Kudos also to stage designer Robert Massicotte with co-designer Alexis Laurence for the video images throughout. Music was an upbeat mixture of jazz, a French Nick Drake sound-alike, electronic, scratch-rap and slower beats. Thought the costumes could have been a bit brighter, showing the transformation, but the artists made up for this with their embullient and warm personalities. A fun and sparkling night out! Merveilleux!
words RHONDA LEE REALI