Welcome to the jungle, Cirque Productions, Inc. style.
Cirque Dreams: Jungle Fantasy, a royally entertaining circus without
animals imaginatively created and deftly directed by Neil Goldberg,
invites Broadway Series South patrons to take a walk on the wild side
in exotic locales created by scenic designer Jon Craine. Craine’s
spectacular sets and Cirque Productions’ equally spectacular
animal costumes are both liberally striped and daubed with phosphorescent
paint, which takes on a bright neon glow under ultraviolet light. Together,
they create a surreal backdrop—an enchanted rain forest—for
a jaw-dropping series of circus acts, some of which truly are death-defying.
The same cannot always be said about the acts of Cirque
du Soleil of Montreal, Pompano Beach, FL-based Cirque Productions’ more
famous Canadian competitor. The gargantuan size of some of the sets
for Cirque du Soleil dwarfs the human element; and the liberal use
of safety wires diminishes the risk and, therefore, the ultimate athletic
achievement of each act, not to mention the audience’s thrill
of seeing seemingly impossible feats performed right before their eyes.
Some highlights of Cirque
Dreams: Jungle Fantasy include:
the amusing antics of the Jungleboys (impish U.S. clowns Marcello Balestracci
and Glenn Rogers); an increasingly complicated jump-rope segment; a
beautiful exhibition of balancing by three Contorting Lizards (Mongolian
contortionists Uranmandakh Amarsanaa, Tsolmon Batbold, and Khongorzul
Erdenebayer); an unusual rubber-ball-bouncing and juggling act by the
Frog Juggler (Ruslan Dmytrak of the Ukraine); a shape-spinning exhibition
by a trio of metal cube and triangle spinning Monkey Manipulators (Balestracci
and Russian spinners Serguei Slavski and Alexander Tolstikov).
Other highlights include: high-flying aerial segments
by Ivan Dotsenko of the Ukraine and Carly Sheridan of Canada), in which
even the tiniest miscue means serious injury or worse; a magnificent
balancing act by the Balancing Giraffe (Siarhei Kuzniatsou of Belarus),
who ultimately stands atop a board set on an approximately five-foot-tall
stack of five vertical cylinders and two horizontal cylinders; and
an impressive strong-man segment by the Jungle Kings (Russian acrobats
Sergey Parshin, Slavski, and Tolstikov).
Sassy staging by director Neil Goldberg, exuberant choreography
by Tara Jeanne Vallee, and a spirited original score by musical director
Jill Diane Winters also enliven the proceedings, which simply must
be seen to be believed. Songs in English by Lady Bug (sultry U.S. vocalist
Julia Langley) and Soul Tree (U.S. violinist extraordinaire Jared Burnett,
who really saws a mean fiddle) not only provide invigorating musical
interludes, plus transitions from scene to scene; but some of them
would also make excellent stand-alone recordings.
From its opening fantasy—in which an Emu (Iouri
Klepatsky of Russia) is born—until its Final Fantasy, the international
cast and crew of Cirque Dreams: Jungle
Fantasy really had Tuesday’s
opening-night audience jumping. Don’t miss it.
Broadway Series South presents Cirque
Dreams: Jungle Fantasy Thursday-Friday,
Dec. 28-29, at 8 p.m.; Saturday, Dec. 30, at 2 and 8 p.m.; and Sunday,
Dec. 31, at 2 and 7 p.m. in Raleigh Memorial Auditorium in the Progress
Energy Center for the Performing Arts, 1 E. South St., Raleigh, North
Carolina. $21-$64. Progress Energy Box Office: 919/831-6060. Group
Rates (for groups of 20 or more): 919/857-4565, group@raleighconvention.com,
or via the presenter's
site. Broadway Series South: http://www.broadwayseriessouth.com/. Cirque
Dreams: Jungle Fantasy: http://www.cirqueproductions.com/cirquedreams.htm.
