Oh, those glorious days gone by when Cirque du Soleil need only post its name in suave newspaper ads, and the world would storm the phones to secure the priciest tickets.
And..........................now ......ECHO. You may clip a discount coupon from your local newspaper, if you still have one and are a subscriber. This oddly and odorouslly unfaltering discovery I came upon by accident, in the Sunday edition of our local rag. Notice how the Montreal monster is not pushing the predictable slate of familiar acts, but, instead, a story line that reaches in many directions and features "our main female heroine, Future." Music by /Wagner?
The amateur-looking ad, if you can read it, promises "a tale of relations and evolution's ...
combining poetry, stagecraft, daring acrobatics, and technology...
exploring the delicate balance between people. animals, and the world we
share." And only one word about circus -- acrobatics.
Having examined a couple of reviews, a recurring theme bleeds distress over a hodgepodge of action. Both give high marks to some of the acts, and yet differ over story elements, one terming them "compelling" despite dolling out only two stars. Both end up in a muddle of disappointment, unable to sing Cirque's praises. Here are excerpts from the notices:
Joshua Chong in a 2-star Toronto Star review: "Echo feels like a dull whimper, quite literally confined to a box [and ]is far from the glorious comeback that Cirque du Soleil intended.
Despite some stunning individual routines and a compelling story line, Echo is torn by competing artistic visions that prevent the show, [which] never comes together as a thrilling whole."
Aisling Murphy in Intermission: "An echo of circuses past. Two creative visions come to a head in ECHO, and they don’t gel particularly well. On one hand, you have the ultra-sleek box and the treasures inside; on the other, you have a mysterious world of paper animals infiltrated by a blue little girl and her blue dog. Most Cirque du Soleil shows tend to wield a thin story, but ECHO is close to non-existent beyond the initial offer of a girl and her pet on an odyssey of some sort."
The show seems to be doing better with consumer reviews, but here we might be traipsing through a minefield of shilling. Luckily for me and this post, I came upon a 34 minute You Tube sampler ...
"The Best of ECHO" from Cirque du Soleil
So I had a chance to see for myself what they are up to, that is, with respect only to acts, for there is no trace of the story telling pushed in the grim, grainy newspaper graphic above The acrobatic action, house acts I suppose, is more roughly athletic than finished. Iron jaw and hair hang, webs and risley and casting, with teeter boarders getting the longest workout, refreshing to a point of redundancy. They are stressing large ensembles, though by far the biggest hit of the program were two clown-like fellows competing to build the tallest stack of cardboard boxes. A four-star hoot. A great build that goes a bit weak when the stack falls but does not come apart.
If that's the best of ECHO, what is the rest of ECHO? I have to assume Shakespeare over sawdust.
Here is what stuck me the most about this leaden opus. It is cold. It is dark, literally dark. It is abstract and alienating. Most of the cast have painted faces or wear masks. I can well understand why the two media reviewers filed acute reservations . One of the Yelper raves talked up never having felt so satisfyingly packed into the atmosphere. It is heavy, yes, I can agree, except that, unlike him, I wanted out. This was not the feeling I recently got when I viewed parts of other CDS shows in a one hour You Tube sampler. It seems that their reigning esthetic of the moment is to feature many people doing similar things, rather then giving focus to well honed world class acts. The enchanting sampler left me open to taking in another Cirque show. After watching ECHO, that desire is gone. In fact, I would sooner go to Ringling than to Cirque.
About that embarrassing ad. What next? Cirque du phone room calling?
