SUNDAY OUT OFTHE PAST: Cirque du Soleil’s Intensely Creative Kurios Works Overtime to Win Us Back: Give Them High Marks for Trying ...

Where are they now?  So much time has passed.  Let me take you back to 2014

 
Circus Review
Cirque du Soleil - Kurios
San Francisco, December 5

In its most infections frames, what the latest offering from Cirque du Soliel seems the most happy doing is simply dancing.  Being a little goofy and off axis juggling and tumbling, making magic and riding upside-down bicycles — and dancing.  It's happy heart is that of a free spirited Italian variety show romping through the streets of Rome.  Fellini would have loved filming it all.

The agreeable spirit of quirky invention can make the more standard circus turns (two of them attached to lifelines) seem a tad secondary, or make that obligatory (a touch of Corteo comes to mind).   Even slightly passe, as if we have somehow left the big top rather than entered it, and are on our way for other worlds to conquer and charm. The attractive revelers, who engage more directly with the audience this time around, have a ball cavorting about on ingenious rigging devices that lift and drop them with terrific force and agility.

Directed by Michel Laprise, the party begins at the wacky control panels of a whimsically mad-scientist character, who is very funny just to watch waddling about, puttering through a maze of gadgets, turning knobs to test lights, ridding oddball contraptions to prove his obscure genius – all of which gives the company ample sanction to flex its abundant creativity.  That’s about the gist of the first half.

It is not until after a long intermission, only lacking a pony ride to make the merchandising orgy complete (there is free water this year, but no cups – they cost a buck), that Kurios turns itself into a high powered circus spectacular, and here the Montreal monster proves that it can still rise gloriously to the occasion when it has to, as here it surely must.  Public patronage has been ominously on the decline in recent seasons, a fact even acknowledged by the Cirque King himself.

First to soar are troupe exploits over a super-large trampoline, followed by a couple of fellows working straps in a clean efficient fashion.  After more audience clowning and dancing, and a rather drawn out finger puppet show, big top gusto resumes on the ground, where the company develops vaulting acrobatics in fantastically thrilling ways.  Much too marvelously complicated to explain, nor have I at hand a program to name names.  On principal, I refused to invest $20 in one. 

So, whatever you may think of the part that came before the break (I recall a blur of phantasmagorical stage pictures) , you are sure to go out singing at least half the show’s praises.  And the captivating special effects alone may haunt your imagination.   There were a large number of kiddies in the audience who sounded tickled.   I keep thinking movie.  I also keep thinking another cinematic bomb.   Antonioni might get it right.   Is he still alive?

On film, it would certainly be far easier to take in and comprehend.  When Kurios is working its many optical illusions, it is a campaign that demands meticulous attention, which can make being a patron to this party a bit of a workout, doubly so if your view is partially blocked by one of the four imposing tent poles – or if you are not particularly fond of craning your neck to peer deeply into a cosmos through an opening at the top of the tent. Bring binoculars.

Another question mark in my mind is the featured clown, who took up plenty of time with the audience being enormously clever and drawing ample laughter, or so I heard. Yes, it's that kind of a circus, too.

This is the Cirque du Soleil that some of its most devoted critics are calling the “comeback" edition, perhaps responding to Guy Laliberte's promise to return the company to its roots.  Strange, this is hardly a return to the ingenious simplicity that marked the company's first efforts under a smaller tent with virtually no special effects.  Kurios is really an extension of a habit for ever more clever high-tech stage wizardry that the Cirque King can't seem to break himself of.

So as for “comeback,”  I’m not so sure.  And given the swaths of empty chairs under a fairly near-full tent pitched in a city perhaps best suited by liberal bent to embrace what is on parade at the moment — San Francisco may not be so sure, either.

Overall rating (out of 4 stars tops):  3 stars      

First posted: 12.13.14   

1.26,26: Founder and Creative Guide Guy Laliberte (the John Ringling North of his time)  sold 90% of his stock  to TPG Capital and Fosum  in  April, 2015.  And that may have marked a critical turning point in the show's checkered history. Kurios, whose rousing second half still  resonates with me, was probably the last Cirque show I saw.  I remember walking out of the tent in San Francisco, across a cold Giant's baseball parking lot, and quibbling about it, and then asking myself, but how did it make you feel? Yes, yes it did! -- it sent me floating out of the tent. I am reminded of the defining  role the man at the top plays. The last Cirque show I saw may well have been the last one that the Cirque King himself produced.

Cirque du Desperate? Show Now Touts Story Line and Paper Animals, Leaves Critics in a Muddle ...

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 clips shown 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 engulfed in 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? 

A Tentless Cave to Sagging Fortunes? Catching Up, or Down, with Cirque du Soleil ...

First draft impressions.

You may have read they are closing the Beatles show, Love, in Las Vegas.  The space needed for some massive makeover (a stadium for Oakland A's baseball?) being planned, the stated reason.  Okay, maybe. Or maybe the Cirque brand is fading?  Novelty in time becomes old-school.  And all the pretentious theatrical airs and posturing surrounding it, even more difficult to take. Get on with the show! I don't know.   I lost the urge a number of years ago, fed up with the fru-fru,  pissed off by having to fork over a few dollars for an empty designer bottle,  needed to contain water out of a faucet. In its better days, there were free faucets outside the tent.  People notice these small things.

Desperation isn't pretty.

Which got me wondering, how is the Montreal Monster, which the Canadian government, its initial angel investor in the beginning,  bailed out in 2022, really doing? I have no idea.  I can only guess they are getting by.   They tried playing the indoor venue circuit years ago, which left patrons wanting. They are now crawling back to those concrete charmers. The mark of a thriving concern? 

Yelp reviews:  Once upon a time, there were many raves.  Now, there are many boos. I focused in on the S.F. Bay Area scene the last year, and found some horribly put-off notices.   I tried to copy a few to bring to your attention, but could not.  Suffice it to say, of around only five to eight in recent months, all but one are in negative territory.  Far closer to zero than to five.  Crique-du-fatigue?

All such epic achievements I suppose are bound to wither away in time. That need not be the case here, but in their apparent grope to continue dominating the market, at least in imagery, they may be diluting their product down to the leftover shelves.

Paranormal Circus May Grab and Spook Jaded Cirque Fans -- Masks Already in Place ...

This one's for you, Susan ...

This research, hastened by an e-mail this morning from my fun-loving L.A.friend, who wrote:  "Do you know of a circus, I heard about it when it was in Texas that was supposed to be scary or supernatural or something like that?"

Well, yes I do, Susan.  But not the Water Circus which I'm touting at the moment, one of the three units from Cirque Italy, and still hanging on to a July 30-August 9 date in St. Louis. For which, my sheltered-in best wishes.

Google directed me to a TV report from Round Rock, TX, last January, where Cirque's Paranormal unit showed horrifying promise, at least in the view of KVUE-ABC as reported by trendy young Brittany Flowers:

"This show has everything you would expect -- aerial skills, acrobats and illusionists.... Definitely a Cirque show but probably unlike any cirque show you've ever seen before."  In other words, more like an old fashioned real circus?

Hand picked photos, Susan, that I believe will play to your eerie expectations.  But don't try any of these things at home.

Chris Holt reincarnated?

In the New Big Cage, No Wild Animals.  Only Humans.

Oh, Otto, did they make you do this for another contract?

How sad what a clown has to do these days to stay current.

It looks like a gas, what with a high-tech freak show ("mini haunted house") that gave me a felling of being back on a gritty weedy midway.  Bring it on!  Yeah, pachyderm poo too.

Facial re-construction, painted on, for only five or ten bucks. At least if it doesn't get you a date, you can wash it off.

The acts? They looks strong, wheel of death, horizontal bars, silks, et all.

Not exactly for kids reports Flowers.  In fact, she says, "Don't bring your kids, basically."  Okay, there goes half your audience. 

Does Round Rock ring a bell with any of you? Are any of you there?

Birthplace of Barbette!

Truth is, these kinky "adult' circuses have been tried here and there, once in Tinseltown, but do not have long shelf lives.

However ... Declares the news person introducing Flowers' report, "you can catch a show that will excite you, thrill you, and scare you." 

And I believe her!  I want to go!  But I'd have to obtain a waiver from my governor Gruesome. And even then, half way through the program, he might rescind and order me out of the tent.

And how is your state doing?

MIIDWAY FLASH! ... Cirque du Soleil Cuts 3,500 Jobs, Goes Bankrupt ...

Though not unexpected, the news is bloody: The Montreal Monster, nearly $1 billion in debt, is cutting 3,500 jobs and filing for bankruptcy protection.

From CNN business, via Covington Connected:  The “immense disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic” is blamed for the action. Actually, it may serve better as an excuse for incredibly stupid over-expansion for too many years.

They are trying to restructure their debts with assistance from the Canadian government and private equity firms.  The movie is seen as a necessary "starting point in an auction to draw other bidders.”

No where is mention made of Canadian billionaire Guy Liberate, founder and recent figure wanting to get back into the mix and take charge.  If he really does, how many of his own Big Bucks (net worth, $1.8 billion) might he be willing to throw in as a show of good faith?

Don't hold your breath.
.

Actually, it was Laliberte himself who engineered the early creation of multiple units, many of which went no where.  And the going nowhere should have given them reason to pause and pull back over the last 10 years, but they could not stop themselves, and are now stuck in a big black hole of their own making.

Cirque du Soleil Near Bankruptcy ... World Circus Day Nixed ... Caballero Stranded in Parking Lot ..

This just in from Don Covington

(Reuters) - Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group is exploring debt restructuring options that include a potential bankruptcy filing, after it was forced to cancel shows because of the coronavirus outbreak, people familiar with the matter said. 

The famed Montreal-based circus company, largely known for its regular shows in Las Vegas venues, had to temporarily lay off most of its staff after social distancing measures put in place to prevent the spread of the virus nixed its performances. 

Cirque du Soleil is working with restructuring advisers to address a cash crunch and its roughly $900 million in debt, the sources said on Thursday. 

Creditors are also in talks with advisers as they prepare for possible negotiations with the company, the sources said. 

Cirque du Soleil has not yet decided how to address its strained finances, the sources cautioned, requesting anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations. The company declined to comment. 

 Cirque du Soleil’s current woes have been exacerbated by debt taken on to fund a $1.5 billion deal in 2015 that resulted in private equity firm TPG acquiring a majority stake in the company. TPG has enlisted its own restructuring advisers to work through the company’s deteriorating finances, the sources said. The private equity firm declined to comment.

Moody’s Investors Service earlier this month cut Cirque du Soleil’s credit rating deep into junk territory and said there was a “high risk” the company would default on its debt. Canceled shows this year are expected to result in steep financial losses for the company “with limited prospects for a tenable capital structure thereafter,” the ratings firm said in a March 18 note.

In other news down the Covington chute: World Circus Day Cancelled, Circo Caballero Stranded in  a Parking Lot.

How Well is Cirque du Soleil's Paramour Doing Compared to Other Shows on Broadway?

Currently on Broadway, 29 shows are up and running.  The Broadway producers data base issues weekly business records.  One of the key factors reported on is gross percentage potential. 

Last week, Paramour ranked at 44.1%.

This would place the Cirque du Soliel production at number 26 out of the 29 shows.

Only three others ranked lower thank Paramour.

MIDWAY FLASH! ... Cirque du Soleil Lands Another Bomb on Broadway---Critically Speaking ... Show Looks Like Another Spiderman On Stage, But With Superior Circus Action ...

"Cirque du Soleil’s Paramour is crashing and burning on Broadway." screams The Globe and Mail in London, "and there’s no point in calling the paramedics. No team of show doctors could cure this bafflingly bad show set in the Golden Age of Hollywood."

In Gotham, site of the carnage, early reviews just in for Cirque du Soleil's Paramour, from Wall Street Journal to New York Times, point to a big floporama, with some great acts that only make the sub-mediocre musical this thing is supposed to be seem and feel even more dreary and second rate.

That's what I glean here in front of my PC in California, surfing critical reaction.

A mixed review from AP finds similarities between Paramour and Spiderman,  the latter having opened at the same theatre, where it enjoyed early popular favor but ultimately crashed and burned, to a colossal loss.

But Cirque's visual feast may hold an edge over Spiderman's in that, as AP notes, Paramour "has the ability to astonish."

From Vulture.Com: 

"Some things just don’t belong together, and you’d think that Cirque, having failed so miserably with New York productions of Banana Shpeel and Zarkana to force this unwanted conjugation, would by now have understood that, or at least have chosen better models and hired a team familiar with the workings of real musicals. It’s an especially arrogant form of carpetbaggery to think that, with enough money, you can do anything. Paramour was capitalized at around $25 million. That’s twice the cost of Hamilton, which admittedly does not include even one drone-controlled lampshade. That must be its problem."

Cirque's Paramour Sinking on Broadway? ... Big Apple's Do-or-Die Deadline is --- Surprise! -- Extended Yet Again ... Ringling Over Ice Lifts off in LA Tomorrow ...

And how would you like your circus, Sir?  On sawdust?  Asphalt?  Over ice?  In a night club?  With or without animals? GMO popcorn?

Photos from The New York Times 

Space Ship SS Ringling lifting off for other worlds tomorrow in Los Angeles, complete with enough assorted animals to stock an Ark. Among them, lions, tigers, dogs, pigs, a kangaroo and a donkey. Just thinking about the setting, though, I feel cold and alien, Who thinks cold when they think circus?

One thing the Felds should go after are three performing hippos — Zlat, Yana, and Aida —  getting great press out of  Russia, a land where PETA dare not go.  They really do perform!    I can imagine them having a ball sliding over Feldified ice, doing their rollovers and slippery long mounts.  Trainer Tofik Akhnudov gets little help from a hard and spiritless  soundtrack; Happier music would give this act some levity. 

Covington Connected, continued: From Don came a link to the hippo rink, above.  And from Don, too, came a drum roll for a German circus with soul.  On stage at the Wintergarten in Berlin, All Night Long is not a  half way this or that mishmash.  All of the acts,  umbrella juggling to rolla bolla and aerials exploits, executed with clean smooth precision.  Such a perfect pleasure.  All of them serenaded by crooners swaying to  R&B ballads.  "I'm a soul man,"croons one, softly in the shadows.   A nice mix for the club crowd..  We have circus and symphony.   Now, they have circus at the cabaret.

How quickly times passes by!  North and Royal, circa 2006

Royally removed from the House of Ringling?  That’s what an inside source would have me believe, reporting that the departure from Kelly Miller of James Royal was hastened by John Ringling North II, for whatever the reason (bum business?) making the call.  James and Johnny were good fiends, and paired up when North gambled some retirement years and money on his acquisition of the Kelly Miller title, nearly ten years ago.  James called himself John’s Art Concello.  True to life, Royal would split from North, as Concello would split from his own North.  The Rawls appear to be handling the front end in Hugo. Jim is now working for Cullpepper and Merriweather.

Big Apple Circus calls its own beggar's bluff:   First, they cried: Unless you, the people, give us $2 million by the end of June, the show will not go on, period. End of story.  End of Big Apple.  Oh, sure, Paul! And I even got pulled into the act when The Observer interviewed me on the matter and used only my quotes about all circuses having a hell of a time.  Then, that do-or-die deadline got extended by a week.  Now, another extension, with allusions to various “other” funding sources in the works.  It’s all a charade that Paul Binder has played well over the years, with a little help from the New York press.  At past points of peril, the company got bailed out by — if I have this right — Kenneth Feld, Cirque du Soleil, and even, are you ready, Donald Trump.  Remember the Trump Tent?  BTW: I think Sir Trump could be another Barnum if he got the circus bug -- or gets bored in the White House.

Why Paul Binder should unfreeze his insane addiction to playing Lincoln Center:  Rental alone costs him half a million.  This bloated non-profit should  be forced to truly downsize, forced into a budget favoring saner options, like, say, a normal spring and summer season on more affordable lots.  Is Prospect Park still there?

Haven't I seen these Cirque amphibians in every other Cirque show?

Another Cirque bomb on Broadway?  The show’s curiously under-scripted Paramour, which opened to scathing reviews at the Broadway Theatre, took the biggest one week box office drop among shows that suffered declining patronage last week:  Down by 17% to an average house of 60.5%.  Under normal, non funded big tops, a show that averages half houses can stay at least solvent. On Broadway, under 70% too long, and your fate is likely sealed.

When Ringling lifts off  tomorrow in LA — it will be only two days short of 70 years since July 16, 1956, when Ringling gave up the big top for good.  Will this latest turn (sans elephants) revive the bigger crowds?  It certainly sounds like an attractive novelty that may reboot box office.  If you go, take a blanket and snow cap.  And think of those three Russian hippos — were they out there on the ice making the whole thing seem positively arctic primal.

About King Cole:  I'll say this, thank God that Dick Garden did not get his hands on the name Cole Bros. Circus of Stars.  There are, from what I have learned, many sad personal stories behind this latest episode, of trusting and faithful long-time Cole employees being left in the lurch and losing out big, one filing for bankruptcy.  I can only hope, as I know many others will, that yet another day will come for Cole Bros. Circus. 

c. 5.25.16

Big Tops Falling ... Mild Animal Circuses Rising ... Cirque du Soleil in Arena Mode .... Welsh Troupe Books Brooklyn Stage ... Church May Swap Worship for Wire Walking ... Chicago Trib Critic Welcomes Elephant Exit .... Well, That’s What I'm Reading (sorry if I’m depressing you) ...

Pippin, the Sequel? Now comes  Cirque du Soleil with acts for a Broadway revival of  The Wiz.    They can't get the Great White Way off their minds.  Neither China, both markets failing to fall for Cirque when it first came to call. Trying to take Broadway, they slipped on their own Banana Shpeel, as they called the turkey they dared to let cluck in a New York playhouse despite scanting out of town notices. Hubris knows no caution.  But they’re not down yet.  The crusade resumes, this time wrapped in the luster of a proven hit musical.  And this time may be a charm.  The Wiz, looking good on the recent NBC Live, pleased more of the critics than none.  Cirque may bank on sneaking inside the musical more than being it.  Even it must play second banana.

 
Another Cirque concoction, something called TORUK, described “a live immersive multimedia spectacle" and claiming inspiration from James Camaron’s AVATAR, will hold court on a stage (their word) as wide and hard as an arena floor.   Opening in Montreal, they are eyeing China, hoping to strike gold the second time around.  Toruk is the first show from Cirque with a  "narrator."  I recall Cirque recycling its tent shows into flimsy arena adaptations.  At the Cow Palace in SF, they were nearly hissed out of town by miffed critics and customers.  Now, as for what appears above, my expectations explode.  

Let me go soft for a moment and honor their chronic courage -- or creative desperation.  Hey, Mister Cirque King up there, can you hear me down here?  When will you make a daring turn and bring in a few animals?  I'm waiting. Sometimes, less is better.

American circus schools forever almost rising, the saga continues.  Every once in a while from cyber courier Don Covington comes a link to another circus arts academy going up, sometimes in a church begging for anybody out there to fill up the chairs (as opposed to a circus in a tent begging for seat warmers).  Latest is talk around Chicago about eager jugglers and tumblers wanting to acquire Logan Square Church for a training center. Locals hailing the Windy City as the center of contemporary circus, which it may be.  They have just the right critic to cover it.  Read on...

And then there are those ambitious plans up New England way for a Circus Conservatory school. Another setback:  Fall classes cancelled.  Portland facility vacated.  Lease terminated.  Focus has turned to “developing the school as a degree granting program for people pursuing careers in the circus arts.”  A mandatory class should  teach students how to get cheap workshop space on public funding.

He’s about the best damn circus critic among the national newspaper theater critics, and his name is Chris Jones, of the Chicago Tribune.  Digs yesterday and today.  Is fair.  Is a fan of the form but won't give anybody a pass.    Looking at Ringling’s latest, Circus Xtreme,  Jones was entertained enough to overlook or note tactfully some sections not up to par.  A few:

“Circus Xtreme — which is not especially extreme, of course, but fun —  lacks a traditional trapeze act in the rafters.” ....  Even then, Jones was wowed by the “fabulously talented” high wire walking Danguir Troupe.   He goes back and forth, up in the air.  “Some of the other acts,” says he, “are old favorites I’ve seen done better.”  A few captured him.  “The Mongolian Marvels (strongmen) are quite something.”

About the elephants preparing to retire, Chris Jones may speak for many people out there by welcoming the news with calm resignation.  “The time has come.” He would also not be bothered in anyway were the Big Cage removed, too..  “I doubt the big cats are long for the circus either, and I won’t miss them.”   When I read that, I had this sinking (out of body?) feeling of watching a whole institution (American circus) being given its walking papers, packing up and heading down lonely ignored roads to no where.

But, not America’s favorite house pets!  Jones adores Alex and Irina’s  “Dogs of the City,” he did, Bow! Wow!  And he found a reliable thrill in the human blast off.  “A total sucker for the good old human cannonball.”   I enjoy and trust his reviews, such a rarity is he.

Blanco

Back to the boards, once again in New York city.  From London, Douglas McPherson sends me linkage to a Welsh troupe called  NoFit State Circus,  government funded and about to leap the Big Pond for a stage gig in Brooklyn.  Touted, by whom I’m not sure, to be “the UK’s leading large-scale contemporary circus company, the NoFitters have toured 15 countries, played to a quarter million people, landed  big awards.

And I still feel a little like I’m watching the pull-out vans driving up.  Hey, guy!  Could I have that lone ring curb over there?

Think it’s time to watch Ring of Fear.  Nobody watched a circus then in a state of guilt.

Next The Ambivalent American Audience.

SUNDAY MORNING OUT OF THE PAST: Cirque du Soleil in Limbo: What Drives -- and Bores -- Guy Laliberte, When the World is Not Enough?

 
Out on a cold dull day here in Oakland, on my walk about, thoughts of the Cirque King Guy Laliberte, and reasons why I no longer feel so connected to the man or his circus.
                                 
Personally, he insults me by the way he hands out "free water" to patrons. For years, in large bottles outside the tent, free water and cups.  That was fine and decent.  Classy.

And then for years, they were swimming in money, and the bottles disappeared.  Go pay two bucks or more for a bottle of spring water, from the "One Drop" man who made a big thing about wanting to preserve the planet's water for those in need -- and I guess for himself, to sell it off to captive customers.

Now, the large bottles have returned.  Free water!  But, good grief, no cups.  To buy one -- you gotta pay one dollar. How desperate can they get?

Artistically, of the last three shows, the first two left me naggingly unmoved. Mediocre.  Humdrum.  Too much same old same old.  The last one, Kurios, said to be a return to their "roots," was really just more special effects and fewer top class acts, although well redeemed after intermission.

Thirty one years is a good record. Mr. Guy, who just sold all but 10% of his interest in the company, already will go down as one of the greatest circus impresarios ever.  Another great 20th century big top mover and shaker sold out after thirty years -- John Ringling North.  But the latter left when his circus was back on top, following a break-out 1965 opus with an invasion of acts from behind the Iron Curtain, bringing fresh blood to the rings, raves to the reviews --- NY to LA, putting more bodies in the seats. And JRN was not lusting after new markets to conquer. He had tired in the Old World and failed.

Laliberte's operation is hurting, and now, still at the helm, he wants to finally somehow someway conquer the Chinese.  He's already tried.  Not sure he understands how or why it did not work.

Leaving the tent after taking in Kurios (3 stars) last December in  SF, I fairly floated.  It was the vibrantly compelling second half that put me back in the "fan" category.  But, still, not enough.  Know something?  I had to concentrate too hard to understand all the clever little lighting effects and various other goings-on around a pole, over there in the audience, through a hole in the tent, up up up  see, can you believe it?  Pay attention! ... When should going to a circus be a workout? 

I never thought that Cirque du Soleil, so brilliant at first, would last beyond a few years, thinking it would soon become a caricature of itself and fade.  Remarkably, it did incredible things.  For a time, it could do no wrong. Laliberte was a marketing genius.

The future feels already sinking deeper into limbo.  Circuses are NOT operated by corporations. And if the Cirque King stays, trouble is, he seems bored without new markets to conquer.  And I fear that he already has run out of new markets to conquer.   Mars?  Pluto?

If only he could accept the world as it is.

first posted 4.25.15

Cirque du Soleil is SOLD ... Guy Laliberte Self-Liberates for Personal Freedom and Family ... China Market Remains the Goal

From CirqCharlie Rivel, dated today:

Cirque du Soleil confirmed its sale to a group of international investors led by US firm TPG, for an undisclosed but is estimated at 1,500 million. Although the details of the transaction are not public, sources close to the institution forward last week Efe-Dow Jones TPG will become the majority shareholder of Cirque du Soleil, while Chinese investment group Fosun and Canadian financial institution Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec have minority stakes. Furthermore, current majority owner of Cirque du Soleil and one of its founders, Guy Laliberté, will retain a minority stake "and continue to provide a strategic and creative contribution to the company," according to a statement released by Cirque du Soleil statement. "After 30 years building the brand of Cirque du Soleil, we have found the right partner at TPG, Fosun and Caisse to bring the Cirque du Soleil towards its next stage in its evolution as a company created with the belief that the arts and business can, together contribute to making the world better, "Laliberte said in the statement. For his part, David Trujillo, a partner at TPG, said that the firm is "excited about the opportunity" to use its global platform of resources and expertise "to propel growth worldwide in the particular brand, content and capabilities Circus ".

Guy Laliberte speaks:

I watched a three minute video, connected to the release, (interrupted by commercials, a current problem on my PC).  Laliberte was very animated and passionate, stressing that he wants to be with and focus on his kids, to help them each reach their passion.

Sounds like they are not up for following him, and he feels emotionally burned out, or irrelevant to his own operation.  He even hinted at maybe someday wanting to buy it back.

He seemed very forthcoming, perhaps more openly expressive than he has ever been. 

My gut feeling is that he may feel a sense of not knowing where to go with the show, that its future is beyond his control and grasp, and decided it would be better to get out  now.

Although, he retains, it appears, a leading position as planner.

He told another source, the Financial Post:  “In all consciousness and with a rigorous personal reflection and corporate reflection, I believe I am making the best decision for Cirque du Soleil and its future, and the best decision for myself and my family.”

 http://www.infocirco.com/noticias.php?pagina=2
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The BBC Calls, Wanting to talk Cirque du Soleil (for Sale), My Take on Guy Laliberte and the Canadians Fearing He'll Desert Them

Got an e-mail last Thursday from BBC World Service.  Might I be up for a brief ten minute chat on a Cirque du Soleil item? Why not, sure, I'm here.  I like being interviewed with no advance on the questions.  Toss 'em at me on the spur; keeps my brain cells in motion, my rushed answers more apt to land spot-on when hot-on.  After all, an interview should be an interview, right?

So, that evening here (4:30 AM, London time, there), Dominic Laurie, a Business Presenter for BBC, called me with questions circling news that Guy Laliberte is now offering 90% of his ownership to outside investors, causing Canadians to fear that he is about to desert them.  Here is what I tossed Laurie's way -- not exactly in these words:

In the beginning, CDS produced an infallible magic that lasted for years. They could do no wrong, and then, the world changed, as always it does. Laliberte could not control his lust for spreading out into more venues, inking contracts for 10-year runs from one city after another, New York to LA, and over in China and elsewhere. Reckless confidence.

The contracts lined up like doomed dominoes, and, likewise, soon came cascading down into an embarrassing heap of fiascoes, one after another, four or five in a row. The product was getting denigrated in over-expansion, over-saturation.

The Cirque King’s most strategic blunder: Not closing his vaudeville stage show, Banana Shpeel, out of town in Chicago, where it had reaped critical and consumer disdain, but stubbornly pushing it onto New Yorkers.  All of which marked Cirque in Big Apple eyes as just another desperate player wanting to take Broadway on a lark.

That old infallible magic was beginning to fade. Other denigrations to the product: Throwing shows originally presented under enchanted tents, into large humdrum arenas, making them look and sound more common.   Desperation invaded the box office. The product was being diluted. Don’t like those words "product" and "diluted," but they fit.

What about the Canadian government? That’s what Laurie most wanted to talk about   Sure.  In essence, Canadian taxpayers funded Cirque in the begriming, about up to a million and a half, giving the show so many years to make it on its own. Great smart idea, I told Laurie. In around five seasons, Cirque du Soleil had weened itself off the subsidies.  

Here’s where a budding morality play gains traction: Given that, minus government start-up money, it's doubtful there would have ever been a Cirque du Soleil as we know it, does Laliberte bear a moral obligation to keep the headquarters in Montreal? A lot of people up there, fearing the worst as Mr. Circus goes looking for buyers, believe he does, even though he, or those who buy him out, can go wherever they want, Nepal to New Jersey.

When I fearfully projected that, without the Cirque King continuing to rule, the whole complicated operation might in time come tumbling down, the man interviewing me seemed to react as if I were, well, a little bit out of my range.  Came his most skeptical question --  Why?

Big sigh on my end. Pressing myself to a point, I talked about Steve Jobs, who had groomed Tim Cook to take over Apple. And I implied that I don’t think Laliberte has ever done such a thing. I mentioned Kenneth Feld grooming his three daughters to take over as Ringling producers.

That's about the gist of it, dressed up rhetorically for this post.

So, one of the greatest circus impresarios who ever lived seems very alone in his ominously shrinking kingdom. Some prospective investors last year pulled out when, given access to the books, they came upon unsettling evidence of a disintegrating balance sheet.

You can’t get much more than that in ten minutes, though I did, tracing Cirque's artistic roots back to the Russians -- in reply to Laurie's wanting to know what made the Cirque version of circus so special. Okay. There it was. It was fun, walking a rhetorical high wire to a drum beat incessantly pushing for a shorter act. Being grilled by, of all mortals, a business reporter!

I wonder if my voice even went out over UK airwaves.

Update, 3/31/15:  It did!  A tad scratchy, but I was pleased with two of the points I made that got quoted -- about Cirque's rapid rise on the world stage after the 1987 L.A. date, and how intelligently the Canadian govt had funded them in the beginning -- giving them so many years to make it on their own before the funding would end.

BTW: The BBC World Service, I've just discovered, reaches the largest broadcast audience in the world, about 200 million people a week, and in 28 languages.

The most thrilling moment in Los Angeles. 1987: this one act, by Amelie Demaiy and Eric Varelas, seductively scored to a tango, sensually choreographed straight through, not a breech in the fabric, brought down the house and sealed the show's fate in LA.  Overnight, Cirque du Soleil's acclaim skyrocketed from local to global.

All photos, from the 1987 program magazine for the Los Angeles Arts Festival run:
* Guy Laliberte, left, with his first artistic director, Guy Caron
* The tent that went to Los Angeles.
* Some of the company members
* Progaram magazine message of good will from one of many government sponsors, Benoit Bouchard, Minister of Employment and Immigration
* The penguin-businessmen tetterboard act
* Chinese Trick-Cycling riders from Beijing
* Demay and Varelas

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Next stop on this thread: My interview, six years back, for Phil Weyland’s documentary on Miguel Vazquez, The Last Flyer, to be uncorked down in Sarasota, come April.

From a welcome message from Phil, seems I escaped the cutting room floor.  I have a few cameos in the film. Tell you more about it soon.

Circus Scramble: Telling Cirque’s Survey What I Think ... When 3-Rings Ruled ... Grandma, Was That Really YOU? ... Ringling Promises New Old Fashioned Danger ... And More! ...

Following the arrows in reverse ...

Update:  12/21/14:  Cirque du Soleil now said to be looking for major investment partners, including possibility of selling a "majority stake," as reported in The Financial Times of  London.

Finally, I opened a survey sent to me by Cirque du Soleil, since I had invested $95.00 to get a decent seat at Kurios - not without sight line obstructions.  The questions are extensive, all of them being answered by the usual 1 to 10 rating system.  At the end, comes a blank window, asking me to post a comment.  And here was mine:

“Here is my biggest surprise.  Guy Laliberte talked about returning to the company's roots. This is hardly that, but an ever more elaborate special effects production, giving short shrift to circus acts of a world class order."

Among tons of questions -- choreography, direction, characters, lights, --- the only mention of circus action comes in a two word descriptor "acrobatic performances".  They did want to know if I thought there were enough of those, and I think I answered a five or six.

Can Kurios curb an ominous downward trend in critical reception and ticket sales for the company?   Sorry to say, at this point, I don’t feel so emotionally connected to the troupe as I once did -- whatever else they may wish to give me, the circus part should be just as outstanding, too, thank you.

What next down the stack?  From a promo leaflet put out by the American Circus Corporation back in around, I’d guess, circa 1920s, and how stunning a contrast to the above:

“The uncensored circus has received much editorial attention during the current year ... all sorts and conditions of humanity boost the circus spirit, and any organization which will energetically awaken the circus microbes which seem to be inherent in human nature — will sure reap results — but to do so and to give satisfaction a REAL THREE RING CIRCUS IS NEEDED, an ordinary vaudeville or variety circus can no longer be passed off as circus.”

Cultural whiplash:  Where am I now, and how far have I traveled away from that old three ring circus?   I am, it feels, centuries away:  Down Mexico way, more than rumors warn that the big shots who run the country are bent on running animals acts off the lot, and those who pay money to see them are showing up, not too impressed, asking “where are the animals?”  Without which, me no wanna buy a ticket to your dull show.

And here in Oakland, to further deconstruct what is left of the one ring standing, the city council has officially voted bull hooks off the lot, come 2017, giving Feld plenty of time to do his deal making behind the scenes – unless the man can break his fixation on elephants.  If the bans hold, he won’t be welcome in Oakland OR L.A., and who knows what other cities.  More out there are lining up to take similar stands. They have, like it or not, CFA, that damming You Tube of Feld’s elephants backstage getting cursed out and slapped around.  Not pretty when it came out five years ago.  Not any prettier now.

END RINGERS: I’m cooking up an end-of-the-year random list of Goods and Bads, Naughtys & Nices. Did you know, juggling records as of 2006 included 13 rings, 12 balls, 9 clubs — and a partridge in a pear tree?  ... The recent passing of Struppi Hanneford, fabulous in the air, wonderful lady on the ground,  marked a big loss for the great Old Guard of ring artists who once wowed our senses ... Is that really YOU,  Grandma, showing up on the Hanneford show, or is it one of your licensed stand ins?  A Circus Report review drops the name Bary Lubin, the Original as you in the know know, but in other quarters closer to BAC land, Lubin is thought to be living in Sweden. Speaking of clowns,  those who hide out behind funny faces bent on scarring to death the public are now stalking the streets of France, attacking innocents, per Chuck Burnes, in CR ...  Now, even circus clowns are becoming an endangered species.  No animals ... fewer daredevils to speak of -- we are nearly down to the last remaining acceptable default act, to quote from the CDS survey, "acrobatic performances" ... Ah yes, and just in the nick of posting this one, it just hit my brain that Ringling's new opus soon to be uncorked down Florida way is to be called.  Circus Xtreme.  Love it ... And look here -- they are still sending in the clowns!

First posted 12.18.14

“Greatest Show in Court” Wins Another Big PR Battle Against Animal Rights Activists ... Cirque du Soleil’s Founder Poised to "Rejuvenate" Show's Lagging Fortunes

From the gift to Kenneth Feld that keeps on giving -- notoriously untruthful witness, the late Tim Rider -- another big victory amounting to millions.  Latest to get stung with steep costs are the Humane Society of the United States, and other related groups, who have been ordered to pay Feld Entertainment $15.75 million.  For those firmly in the Feld camp, it’s Good News.

For others not quite so convinced, well, in the Court of Public Opinion, the jury is still out.  In a pair of seasons, if a Los Angeles city ordinance voted in holds, you won't see any elephants cavorting at Staples Center – that is, if Ringling still comes to Tinsel Town.  On a wobbly fence I sit, watching this whole thing play out, noting, at this juncture, the monumental stupidity of these animal rights activists that banked on the words of Ryder, a one-time Ringling elephant trainer, who made quite a bundle posting as a witness for the activists.

Onto the circus of no animals.

Cirque King, Guy Laliberte, telling Sophie Cousinea of Montreal’s The Globe and Mail, that, yes, he’s been knocked about by some big failures in recent years, and, yes, the profit margin has retreated to near nothing.  He hastens to add that his shows, on balance, are not losing any money.   He sells “between 14 and 15 million tickets per year.”

He's now, headlines the story "on a mission to rejuvenate his Cirque du Soleil."

“We fell into the trap of thinking we could do all things entertainment-related,” said the 54-year-old dynamo, ready to sell 20% to 30% of his live entertainment group, the funds to be channeled into continued expansion into other areas.

So, back to circus concentration, hardly.  Laliberte still covets a  durable and respected slot on the Great White Way.  Funding now being sought will underwrite yet more Broadway shows (or attempts at).  The man at the top still harbors a dream of “finally cracking the New York market.”  Given Laliberte’s paltry track record competing with giant ticket draws like The Lion King and  The Book of Mormon, I fail to see much hope here — unless he can join money with the right Broadway talent to bring in that one-in-a dozen miracle: a Hit Show. 

Declining CDS fortunes are blamed, partly, on the overly high tickets prices of the failed Iris in Hollywood (iffy excuse), on Z in Tokyo going down under the crippling 2011 tsunami (I can buy that).  Most critically along the Vegas strip, wracked by the financial crisis, hotels were driven to offer discounted tickets, “forcing” CDS to follow suit. 

Now, if you, like I, have grown tired of overproduced mediocre “circus” shows under the Grand Chapiteau, you may opt for a newer Cirque venture soon to be coming your way — maybe – such as your own glitzy wedding reception organized by 45 Degres, with whom CDS has formed a partnership.  And then, on the theme park horizon, there too may rise another incarnation of Cirque du Soleil in the form of  “multi media theme parks.”
           
Once, they employed 5,000 staff. Now, the number is 4,000.  “I am a warrior,” declared Mr. Laliberte to Ms. Cousineau. 

And so I, a naive dreamer, still await the Cirque du Soleil with animals.  Don’t count it out, kids.   If they can just get the right deal with Peterson Peanuts.

The New York Times Damns Cirque du Soleil's Amaluna With Faint Praise, Smart Reservations

Cirque's latest touring show, a pretentiously decorated and directed drag high on allusions to some great theme, did not fool me. It did not fool the San Francisco critics.

And neither has it fooled the New York Times.

About the strongest positive from critic Claudia La Roco, there is this:

"But the display of female strength (as in biceps and triceps and quads, oh my) is nonetheless a lovely thing. There are no damsels in distress here, despite the aforementioned pesky lizard man.

Her not-so-hot assertions:

"It’s possible, then, that you won’t connect emotionally to “Amaluna,” the latest Cirque du Soleil extravaganza to roll into New York."

"Beyond this feminist gloss, is there anything to be said about “Amaluna” that you couldn’t guess? Not really. It may be a new production, but it’s an old formula, a giant machine of a spectacle with (unfortunately tedious) clowning thrown in, and lots of sound and light and quick set changes to keep things moving in a blur."

As I wrote last year, in my own review,  having now seen two Cirque duds in a row -- Totem and then Amaluna, next time they call, I'm waiting to see what the S.F. critics write before I decide to go or not to go.

The thrill is gone.