EMPIRE (Spiegelworld). At the Spiegeltent (318 Queens Quay West). Runs to October 18. $45-$129. spiegelworld.ca. See listing. Rating: NNNN
Spiegelworld‘s touring production, Empire, has set up shop in an antique wooden tent down by the waterfront. It’s being billed as a naughty night out, but don’t be fooled. The 90-minute show is constructed around classical circus acts performed at the highest level, with the raunch mostly window dressing. And though it doesn’t exactly extend the boundaries of circus cabaret, Empire does provide moments of real enchantment.
The show, somewhat constrained by the intimate 3-metre-wide circular stage and seating that has front-row patrons within touching distance of the performers, is dominated by the eight or so brief acts of contortion, aerial work, acrobatics and brief flirtations with contraptions such as the spin top, the Cyr and German wheels.
The international cast is accomplished, and many of the acts deliver the thrills you’d expect. I love the roller skating duet with Denis Petaov swinging Mariia Beseimbetova around in centrifugal and exquisitely fast circles (though by this point sitting in the front row was a bizarre roller coaster of terror and hilarity). Seeing the technique up close, the way Petaov secured his grip around his partner’s forearms before each trick and the eye contact between the performers, is a treat.
There’s a similar intensity to Henok Belachew Yazachew and Temegen Adole Zada‘s Risley act (foot juggling basically, with Yazachew the object in the air) and a tightly choreographed adagio/hand-to-hand section performed flawlessly by Aiusha Khadzh Khamed and Vlad Ivashkin.
Comedy duo Oscar and Fanny (Don Colliver and Jamie Franta) supply continuity between virtuosic performances, and their bawdy humour sets up the evening’s mischievous tone. Though it’s mostly predictable good fun in a genitalia-focused, molest-the-closest-audience-member kind of way, I have quibbles with much of the show’s interstitial material.
Musical interludes by Miss Purple (vocalist Tessa Alves) and guitarist Moondog (Aurelien Budynek) are too often top-40 cheese, the comic bits a tad too long and the many New York City references just strange here.
Empire veers from divine rigour to crass banality in the blink of an eye. Throughout, the audience response is suitably boisterous.
The show’s closing number is a meditative wonder of endurance balancing by Andreis Jacobs (Rigolo). Here, in solidarity with the performer’s epic struggle with a dozen long pieces of wood and a feather, the shrieking laughers go quiet and the picture-snappers stop snapping. The collective focus on Rigolo as he pants and sweats buckets over his delicately swaying construction unites the room. Magic.
