The Weasel: Money makes the circus go round
January 26th, 2008 by moniesThe Cirque du Soleil may have revitalised circus as entertainment, but what I like is its very lack of circus glitz. There’s not a spangle to be seen and no roll of drums even for the climax of the evening, which occurred in a performance by a ragged gaggle of tumblers. One was thrown through the air to land on a wavering column of three men standing on each other’s shoulders. (Describing circus tricks is like describing cartoons. Best not attempted.) The whole thing was done so fast, so flawlessly that you can scarcely believe what you’ve seen.
The imaginative setting for such miracles is the major innovation of the Cirque du Soleil, though the company still places heavy reliance on those traditional circus time-fillers, the clowns. In between the astonishing diabolo act performed by a quartet of Chinese tots and the Cro-Magnon lookalike whirling in a metal wheel like Leonardo’s Vitrurian Man, you get a generous provision of clownish pratfalls and balloon routines for your money (tickets range from pounds 17 to pounds 37.50).
Not as transportingly strange as the circus’s previous London shows such as Saltimbanco, an illuminated medieval manuscript brought to life, Quidam appears to be mainly inspired by Magritte and the French film classic The Red Balloon. The gulf between its poignant mise-en-scene and the reality of Cirque du Soleil, a multi-million dollar business with two permanent shows in Las Vegas, is quite as breath-taking as anything you’ll see under the Big Top. The programme (pounds 6.50) explained that Quidam was a nameless passer-by, a person rushing past, a person who lives lost amidst the crowd in an all-too anonymous society.
Presumably in an effort to banish such anonymity, the Cirque du Soleil offers a range of branded souvenirs including an embroidered denim jacket at pounds 50 and a leather jacket at pounds 150. Should you desire to eat and drink the circus life, you can also acquire a plate (pounds 8), coffee cup (pounds 7) and saucer (pounds 5) emblazoned with the C du S slogan “invoke, provoke, evoke”.
The first four pages of the programme are occupied with full-page photographs of various administrative bigwigs of the C du S. There is, however, an informative selection of quotes from the diary of the show’s director Franco Dragone. “Ah! Times are tough but life is beautiful and I walked my dog this morning,” muses the maestro in one entry. Little escapes his attention: “Ah! These public benches. Ah! These teenagers. Ah! These kids. Ah! These old lovers. Ah! Life, death, love… Ahhh!
These penetrating insights are underlined by a manifesto from Daniel Gauthier, President of the C du S: “We must speak of the right to live. We must assert the right to be different. The forgotten must be brought back to the fore.” There can be little doubt that these sentiments were trembling on the lips of the City types who made up much of the audience for Quidam as they downed Veuve Clicquot at pounds 45 per bottle at the circus’s champagne bar.
Soon you’ll be able to enjoy the Cirque du Soleil on a year-round basis. London is about to join Las Vegas, Orlando and Biloxi, Missouri as one of the troupe’s permanent venues. I discovered this cheering news in a display adjoining the big top. This reveals that the ambitious development plans for Battersea Power Station include a 2,000-seat theatre in the form of “an iconic sculptural building” for the Cirque du Soleil. Presumably, its “300 VIP seats” will be reserved for “the nameless passer-by”.
The feverish prose which describes “the power station Battersea” appears to have been influenced by its future circus tenant. “The completed project should have the natural vitality that is inseparable in good city living,” it announces passionately, if ungrammatically, “but it should also make its mark with diversity, energy, culture, excitement, change and, most importantly, a sense of neighbourhood.”
How heart-warming to think of this New Jerusalem on London’s riverbank. Needless to say, I was eager to discover the nature of the other developments which will constitute this idyllic community. They turned out to include a 700-bed conference centre (58,950 sq metres), a “product showcase/exhibition building” (29,600 sq metres), 40,000 sq metres of office space, a 400- bed urban resort hotel (47,670 sq metres), not forgetting 3,500 parking spaces. Could anything be more neighbourly?
Author: Christopher Hirst
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