Not since Howard Shore’s “The Fly” at LA Opera have insects been the buzz in Los Angeles, and further adventures in artistic entomology await us under the blue-and-yellow grand chapiteau at the pier in Santa Monica, where yet another razzle-dazzle showstopper from Cirque du Soleil has set up camp.
This is on the heels or mandibles of “Iris” at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood and the Michael Jackson spectacular that swept through the Staples Center.
“OVO” – Portuguese for egg – drops us into a menagerie of human crickets, spiders, ants, butterflies and beetles. The format isn’t so different from other Cirque shows, nine or ten jaw-dropping acts separated by a long intermission and interspersed with clownish characters who fascinate us when they’re witty or bug us when they’re too silly.
I sometimes think that it must have been the cantina scene in the original “Star Wars” that got the ball rolling, because as the years speed by – 25 different shows in 25 years, some set up permanently and some still globe trotting – a couple of things seem constant, and constantly improving: exotic costumes and makeup accessories, a marriage of New Age and Old World music, ever-creative uses of lighting and atmospheric effects, inventive choreography, and of course – culled from the world over – the most agile and strong and physically fit performers imaginable. Cirque’s motto must be: A feast for the senses!
“OVO” doesn’t disappoint, although the hand-balancing and the contortionist (who clearly has had her spine surgically removed) and the trapeze artists and all that aerial ballet stuff has been around since the dinosaurs. But perhaps we can never really tire of the best of the best – like Beethoven or Mozart – and the Ants, who juggle cushion-sized slices of kiwi fruit (and each other) with their feet in perfect synchronization, are pretty amazing. So is Li Wei, billed as the Spiderman, who performs a “slack wire” act that brings the audience to its feet when it’s over. Li Wei not only prances on a tightrope, he rides a unicycle across it while performing a handstand. If you have a girlfriend, keep this guy away from her. But seriously, c’mon, man, you’re making the rest of the human race look like cripples.
“OVO” has legs, as they say, and lots of them, not to mention wings – an aerospace industry all unto itself. This didn’t materialize by itself, of course, but came about through the wildly imaginative collaboration of writer, director, and choreographer Deborah Colker, set designer Gringo Cardia, costume designer Liz Vandal (a true punk rocker’s name), composer Berna Ceppas, and so many others – including a live band, the Cockroaches, with an alluringly attired lead singer – my eyes were glued to her like flypaper.
OVO continues through at least March 11 and tickets are at the box office or available at cirquedusoleil.com/ovo.
