Theater review: Cirque Dreams Illumination at Bass Performance Hall

by Carol Anne Gordon of John Garcia's The Column

The show is family-friendly and very enjoyable, especially once you train yourself only to look at the featured act center stage.

Robert Muraine - Detour

First rule of theatre -- don't let something that's not the main action draw focus from ... hello ... The Main Action. There's stage business, which is usually a good thing, and then there's stage busy-ness, which is really distracting.

Cirque Dreams Illumination was such a remarkable show, full of very talented — and limber! — acrobats, dancers, and comedians, but there was almost too dang much going on at once, which sidetracked our attention from the performance that was supposed to be garnering all our focus.

The 24 inventive and amazing scenes that made up the show were presented three-ring circus style, normally seen in a sports arena. But we were not at the huge American Airlines Center in stadium seats that ascend five stories and allow us a bird's eye view of all three rings. We were at Bass Performance Hall, watching them on a proscenium stage, while (at least) three separate acts were happening simultaneously.

It was a cacophony of movement and couldn't help but distract your focus from the featured performer in the scene.

The overarching concept of the piece was that a news crew from a local television station has come to the above ground train station/underground subway station in order to film the elements that make up a typical day there. The news reporter sang during most of the scenes, ostensibly to give us some exposition in an otherwise dialogue-free show. Her words, unfortunately, were completely unintelligible. I couldn't tell if she wasn't enunciating, if her mic was malfunctioning, or if the music level was just overpowering her. Perhaps it was a combination of all three, but the net result was confusion rather than giving (forgive me) any ILLUMINATION to the actions onstage.

Any exposition, however, was completely superfluous, because there were such great actions occurring onstage. A ballerina, in Swing Kid attire, performed amazing leg extensions and twirled effortlessly en pointe. Highway hazard beacons came to life while lithe gymnasts hung from the ceiling by their own (and others') necks and ankles. High wire acrobats performed tricks so far above the stage that they made me fear for their safety!

My favorite scenes were "Illumination" (performed completely in the dark with only black lighting and phosphorescent highlights), "Right to Remain Silent" (where a silent film director instructed four hapless audience members {chosen at random} in the climactic scene for his movie), and "Tune In" ( in which lead clown changed his actions appropriately as another character tuned in and out of radio programs such as sports, news, Riverdance, etc.).

A double-jointed contortionist created a brand new form of pop-'n'-lock, and a buff athlete, playing a sailor, did some scary one-handed balancing acts on an ever-rising, Jenga-like amalgamation of wooden chairs.

As each new scene started, I tried to keep my focus on just the main, center stage act, but the constant movement of other performers — such as commuters ceaselessly passing back and forth upstage in stop action freeze frame moments — kept pulling me away from the main performer's actions.

After about six scenes, I stopped worrying whether the other performers, doing really interesting things stage left and stage right, were worth watching and started to notice that, eventually, all the non-center stage performers were getting their own moment in the center spot.

Even so, a few times more, I stopped watching the main act because something weird was happening upstage — like tall headless commuters (a la Ichabod Crane) in zoot suits being chased by fire hydrants with legs and swiftly moving cutouts of people running to catch a train.

The costumes and choreography were colorfully eye-catching but the music was rather redundant (and loud). The performers were breathtaking in their fluid movements that showed off their abs of titanium and made you wish you hadn't had that second piece of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving Day (or the last 25 Thanksgiving Days).

As I was leaving the theater, everyone in the audience was, as usual, turning their cell phones back on. A girl next to me received a phone call almost immediately and I couldn't help but hear her as she excitedly told her caller, "Oh, it's GREAT, just beautiful, I just wish there wasn't so MUCH happening on stage at once, so I could concentrate on one act at a time."

The show was family-friendly and very enjoyable, especially once you trained yourself only to look at the featured act center stage. Perhaps this would be easier if you sat farther back and high up from the stage (in one of the galleries or in the mezzanine), or if you brought one of those boxes with a pinhole in it that you used to make as a kid to safely view a solar eclipse.

Prices are reasonable, and the show is only in town for five more days, so do hurry and catch it, it's worth it.