On Sunday, June 26, 2011, I took the opportunity to see one of the last few preview performances of Cirque du Soleil’s new venue show – Zarkana – now taking up temporary residence at Radio City Music Hall in mid-town Manhattan.
Joining me for this viewing were friends and fellow Cirque du Soleil fans Douglas Metzger, his wife Mary, and a small contingent of their friends and kids. We went in to our experience blind, meaning, little of the show’s content (acts, music, and theme) was known to us; therefore, we hoped to reserve judgment of the show on its merits rather than prior expectations.
But even keeping that in mind, Zarkana at times was a little hard to swallow.
Zarkana is one part acrobatics and one part rock opera with a penchant for the macabre (floating eyeballs that follow the action on stage, anyone?), which seems more attune to the early dark inklings of Criss Angel Believe than a classic acrobatic Cirque du Soleil show, as some pre-staging interviews led us to believe.
Although comparing and/or contrasting each new show to those who came before it isn’t perhaps the best way to review a new production. As a fan of Cirque du Soleil for more than a decade, and one who has seen virtually every show the company has produced in one form or another, drawing conclusions and comparisons from past endeavors is, unfortunately, inescapable. And though I welcome the new, the bizarre, the untried… the concept of macabre meets acrobatics here doesn’t mix most of the time.
And generally speaking: there’s too much atmosphere too little new skill.
THE CONCEPT
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Zarkana is a visual vortex set in a slightly twisted musical and acrobatic fantasy universe where, little by little, chaos and craziness give way to festivity and love regained.
The story follows Zark, a magician who has lost his powers and the love of his life – in an abandoned theatre where he was successful several years earlier, finding the theater populated by a motley collection of off-the-wall characters and incomparable acrobats.
His friends, the White Clowns, come out of hiding to try and help him put together a show, but nothing works the way he wants: His magic powers are out of control because Lia, Zark’s assistant, is missing. Without her, there can be no magic – she is the love of his life!
But also within the theater are the Mutants, four sirens as sinister as they are fabulous – The Pickled Lady, Mandragora, Kundalini and Tarantula – and they are determined to seduce him, diverting him from
his quest.
THE SHOW
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In the lyrical, fantastic world of Zarkana, the setting – an abandoned theatre – is a character in its own right. The walls breathe, move and sing. The main set elements consist of three sweeping arches – all sculpted by hand – representing three of the four mutants who try to divert the magician Zark from his quest.
The first arch represents Kundalini the Snake Lady, whose world is populated by dozens of slithering snakes. It’s the largest of the three arches and is decorated with more than 150ft of hand painted resin “snakes” which started out as Styrofoam sculptures that were used to create molds for the liquid resin. The second arch, which also serves as a video screen, harbors Mandragora, a plant-like creature that comes to life with “arms” extending out like scissors nearly 100 feet. The third represents the Pickled Lady, a video-based creature with six arms who lives in a large pickle jar.
The overall aesthetics were inspired by the Art Nouveau movement of the last century, as well as the works of Gaudí and Klimt, while many of the organic shapes in the set elements are a nod to the master French glassmaker and jeweler René Lalique. Upon this setting a number of acrobatic feats are staged, they are: Juggling, Ladder Trio, Rope Duet, Flags, Russian Bar, High Wire, Cyr Wheel & Cerceaux in the first half; Sand Painting, Flying Trapeze, Wheel of Death, Hand Balancing, and Banquine in the second.
THOUGHTS
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At this stage of the show’s development, much of its first-half is rather weak acrobatically.
I personally enjoyed opening the show with the juggler, something simple; however, much of the routine is similar to other juggling acts I have seen inside and outside of Cirque du Soleil. There was nothing new presented here. And though the Flags piece was rather interesting in a Cirque setting, it might have been more appealing had it not given off a strong BLAST vibe. Even the Russian Bar routine (performed by a single female) was a nice diversion, but little in the way of innovation.
To be quite honest the show actually held my attention until the tight-rope number, the second-to-last act in Zarkana’s first-half.
During the set-up for this piece, the background became more projected than it had previously been (or I hadn’t noticed much up to this point) and turned into a serpent’s layer of sorts. The arches and columns of the inner proscenium turned into vestiges of snakes whilst rising from the middle of the stage, in an image I would have thought belonged in some other kind of Broadway production, the female singer… as a snake.
“Snake lady” then “serenades” us in the most whiny, god-awful screech whilst the guys of the tight-rope turn a rather lack-luster performance on the wire.
As a seasoned veteran of Cirque performances, I know it’s hard to turn a more inspired performance than the boys from Kooza, but could you have at least made it look like you were enjoying yourself?
This particular number is a great example of the jarring mix that Zarkana is trying to project, in my opinion. Neither the act’s staging nor its accompanying music made any sense to each other. The two contrasted harshly rather than being complimentary, which you desperately need in order to have a successful presentation. And because the act didn’t seem to have it, the performers had nothing to work with – their performance was out of tune (no pun intended and no thanks to the screeching wretch) with what was going on around them.
The mess that is the Tight Wire, the kind of WTF moment – that’s Whisky Tango Foxtrot – that unfortunately bleeds over into the next number, a combination Cyr Wheel / Aerial hoops piece that is neither one or the other. The echo of the previous number still prevails here and it ruins what should be an explosive and triumphant ending to the first half of the show. Rather than keeping us spellbound for the restart of the show some twenty minutes later, we sat in confusion wondering what we were taking part in.
Its presentation, much like the ladder, rope and Russian bar didn’t raise the bar – if you’ll pardon the pun – of numbers Cirque has employed (and created) in the past. Meaning: it’s nothing I haven’t seen before, and better, in other shows. This leads me to another point I’ve harped on before – innovation. If you look over Cirque du Soleil’s catalog, for the most part you’ll find innovation in the acts it presents.
For example, the Russian Swing. The first time Cirque audiences were introduced to the apparatus was in 1992’s Saltimbanco, a single-form piece with little degree of difficulty. We saw the apparatus again in 1998’s “O” and not only did Cirque double the number of apparati, Cirque also included water rather than a firm stage. Cirque upped the ante in 2002’s Varekai when performers not only tossed themselves into huge canvas screens but also tossed themselves from swing to swing.
But there is a silver lining here.
Much of the pain of the first half of Zarkana was washed away by the awesome performances of the Sand Painting, Flying Trapeze, and Banquine numbers (our performance didn’t have Hand Balancing and Wheel of Death as presented here was lackluster compared to Kooza’s), so the show did end on a high note, relatively speaking.
Otherwise, we’ve seen juggling of this caliber before, a ladder act (aka Corteo, and it’s done much better there), a Spanish Rope duet (in Ovo, also done better there, and in Corteo), an anemic High Wire (good god, could these guys have any less stage presence and energy?), Cyr Wheel & Hoops (a mash-up of both disciplines at the same time that does neither justice, or anything new), and a single Russian Bar piece which is better than everything else in the first half of the show, but still lacking.
The clowns, to me, were not funny. And the music… it’s just average.
There’s nothing remarkable about it.
In the end I fear without a number of significant changes, retooling and hard decisions, Zarkana will go the way of Banana Shpeel in New York City – to the place where failed shows end up. Cirque du Soleil has a lot riding on this show’s success, especially if it wants to capture the New York City market, but alas I don’t feel present-day Zarkana has what it takes to capture New Yorker’s imagination.
Or the fans.
With that said, if you’re in New York City before the show’s temporary-final curtain call, give Zarkana a chance. You may find it to your liking way more than I did and in reality that’s all it takes.
“MY THOUGHTS ON ZARKANA”
BY: RICKY RUSSO – ORLANDO, FLORIDA (USA)
