Review - Cirque du Soleil's Zarkana

See enough Cirque du Soleil productions and the formula becomes clear very quickly. It's a given that you'll be treated to a collection of world-class jugglers, balancers, acrobats and daredevils displaying skills that would make all but the most jaded widen their eyes and let out the occasional gasp. But it's the packaging that always varies, though you can always expect a threadbare plot (more concerned with mood than story), forgettable songs and a troupe of clowns whose antics are, on occasion, genuinely amusing.

Writer/director Francois Girard calls Cirque's new entry, Zarkana, "an acrobatic rock opera," which, in Broadway terms, might translate as a production of Follies performed by the cookies of Anyone Can Whistle and designed by Salvador Dali. The obligatory plot concerns a magician and his lost love, along with the hijinks of a doggy duo named Hocus and Pocus, but the real story is the luscious design work of Stephane Roy (sets and props), Alan Hranitelj (costumes) and Alain Lortie (lights). The thrilling art deco design of Radio City Music Hall gives way on stage to a surreal representation of an abandoned vintage theatre. There's a proscenium arch made up entirely of snakes (no, not real ones) and at one point the entire stage is filled with curtains of spider webs (draw whatever conclusions you wish). The LED wall that might display a sea of floating eyeballs, a rain of upside down umbrellas or, at one point, some extra Cyr Wheel rollers, may be overkill, as occasionally there is just too much going on.

But once the company of aerialists, trapeze flyers, high-wire balancers and the like take over, the focus is, rightfully, all on them and the spacious Radio City stage gives them ample room to let loose. An unusual new addition, and a real showstopper, is artist Erika Chen, who works from a glass table above a video camera so that the audience sees a projection of her swift hands creating ever-evolving portraits and scenes out of blue sand. Her time on stage is serenely captivating.

But the most eye-popping skill on display is when brothers Ray Navas Velez and Rudy Navas Velez seriously seem to risk their lives on the appropriately named Wheel of Death. It's like two circular cages, similar to hamster exercise wheels, placed on opposite ends of spokes which spin on an axis thirty feet above the ground. The boys are continually in motion as they pop inside and outside the wheels, one of them even skipping role in a perilous position.

If most of the evening seems a little familiar to frequent Cirque du Soleil patrons, newcomers are certain to be dazzled by Zarkana's sumptuous design and the troupe's miraculous skills.

Photos by Jeremy Daniel.

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