Cirque de Soleil’s Luzia
Royal Albert Hall
Reviewed – 15th January 2020
★★★★★
“The various manifestations of beauty onstage are almost enough to distract from all the skill and athleticism on show”
The remarkable French Canadian company Cirque du Soleil has now been performing since 1984. From small beginnings just outside Quebec City, its founders, Guy Laliberté and Gilles Ste-Croix, have built a large multi-national group of circus performers and musicians who tour around the world. But these are no ordinary circus shows. They create spectacles that are as memorable for the extraordinary fusion of music, dance, and design, as they are for daredevil acrobatics. To see one show by Cirque is to come away thinking that they will never create anything as wonderful again. Then you return for a different production, and realise that they, once again, exceed your wildest imaginings.
For it is wild imagination that fuels Cirque du Soleil, and their latest show, Luzia. It is described as a “waking dream of Mexico”, and there is something truly dream-like about this show. From the moment you reach your seat in the vast space of the Albert Hall, you notice that something unusual has occurred. A performing space, surrounded by marigolds, has been created in the centre of this concert hall, and this connects by way of a raised platform to the back of the auditorium where a large metallic disc hangs in space. Not only that, but as the show begins we see the performing space is built on a revolve. The creative team that designed and manages the sound, lighting, projection and rigging for what follows is enough to win one’s admiration for Luzia right there.
But Cirque du Soleil is not content to simply create a noteworthy space. Right from the start, the audience is drawn into this “dream of Mexico” with the sound of the cicadas and the music which encompasses the many traditions of music from this multicultural country. Add to that the vivid colours that Mexico is famous for in the costumes and makeup of the performers, and your senses are already in danger of overload. But there’s more. Remarkable puppets such as horses and jaguars gallop or slink on stage, and the musicians, as often as not, wear crocodile or fishes’ heads. The circus performers themselves appear as monarch butterflies, or brightly coloured birds. Some look like lizards, and imitate them as well, as they slither up poles and drop alarmingly fast, catching themselves just in time, the way real lizards do. Some are there as comic distraction, such as a trio of flowering cacti. The Mexican reverence for water appears in several forms, from a deep sea diver swimming in the sea, to tropical deluges of warm water that create a small pool into which a graceful aerialist ascends and descends, all the while watched by a curious jaguar. But if you worry about becoming lost or disoriented in this otherworldly creation, there’s always the Fool to bring you back to earth with his clowning. His antics are warmly welcomed by the audience, while an army of performers and stage hands run on to dry the stage and prepare for the next act. It’s all adroitly managed.
The various manifestations of beauty onstage are almost enough to distract from all the skill and athleticism on show. But the costumes, lighting and staging of each act are so carefully put together that each piece seems a seamless part of an acrobatic poem in motion. You might think you are just imagining a juggler with six silver pins spinning around him, or girls in golden hoops spinning around the stage, but they’re all there, right in front of you. You might wonder if you’re dreaming the monarch butterfly with wings that brush the edge of the performance space; or a troupe of acrobats dressed in flowered costumes who achieve dizzying heights as they catapault each other from swing to swing. It doesn’t seem possible that Cirque du Soleil can keep up this fiesta of the senses—but let’s not forget the contortionist who, on his perspex platform, creates a trippy exhibition of all the things you were convinced the human body couldn’t do.
Once again, Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia exceeds my expectations, and I can’t wait to see what this company comes up with next. Will they exceed yours?
Reviewed by Dominica Plummer
Photography by Matt Beard
Cirque de Soleil’s Luzia
Royal Albert Hall until 1st March
Last ten shows reviewed by Dominica:
The Unseen Hour | ★★★★ | Pleasance Theatre | October 2019
Cinderella | ★★★★ | The Vaults | November 2019
Iphigenia In Aulis | ★★★ | Cockpit Theatre | November 2019
Madame Ovary | ★★★★★ | Pleasance Theatre | November 2019
The Snowman | ★★★★ | Peacock Theatre | November 2019
Touching The Void | ★★★★ | Duke Of York’s Theatre | November 2019
A Christmas Carol | ★★★★ | Greenwich Theatre | December 2019
Oi Frog & Friends! | ★★★★★ | Lyric Theatre | December 2019
The Prince Of Homburg | ★★★★ | The Space | December 2019
Jason Kravits – Off The Top | ★★★★★ | Live At Zédel | January 2020
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