I always hated the Cirque
du Soleil. I do realize that it’s basically the most beloved entertainment producer in
the world, and perhaps the most successful, with seven shows currently running in Las
Vegas alone, and 20 worldwide. But something about its particular brand of clownish whimsy
and grinning, brightly-colored theatrics always rubbed me the wrong way.I
trace my Cirque-phobia to one specific day sometime in the late 1980s. My parents had told
me they were taking me to the circus. The circus! Having been raised on comic books and
Warner Bros. cartoons, I knew what to expect: elephants on stools, lion tamers, bearded
ladies.I was mistaken. My folks brought me to a Cirque du Soleil
production, and I sat dumbfounded through an hour or so of ribbons and acrobatics. No
elephants. No lions. No beards. I was mystified and deeply disappointed, and I’ve
held a grudge against Cirque ever since. To be fair, as a responsible grown-up, I
appreciate the company’s no-animals policy; circus animals have historically been abused
and kept in horrific conditions. But at the time, I was pretty shaken up, and that bad
memory lasted into adulthood.It lasted, in fact, all the way up to last year.
On a press trip to Las Vegas, I was invited to see the Cirque’s O one night
at the Bellagio. I was reluctant; I almost didn’t go. But I got dragged along. I
brushed past the performers in the aisles, entertaining the incoming audience (a Cirque
tradition), and I settled, sulking, into my seat.The show began, and for the
next hour and a half or so I was… thrilled. Laughing, clapping, loving it.
I’m not afraid to say that O kind of blew my mind and changed the way I
felt about Cirque.Cirque du Soleil isn’t like other circuses, and
it’s not just the no-elephants policy. It’s not a creaky institution with a
century of family history (like many European circuses) or an American behemoth (like
Ringling Bros.). It’s a story of a few ballsy men who bet everything and beat the
house. One of the founders and today’s CEO, Guy
Laliberté, is a Richard
Branson-style adventurer. Busker-turned-businessman? Check. Fire eater? Check.
High-stakes poker champ? Check. Space tourist? Check. Global philanthropist? Aaaaannnd
check. In the early ‘80s, when a nascent Cirque didn’t get the
government grant it needed to stage a second season, cofounder Gilles Ste-Croix climbed
onto a pair of stilts and walked 56 miles from Baie St-Paul, Quebec (where the circus was
first founded), to the government offices in Quebec City to argue for money for another
season. The ploy worked, and, needless to say, money wasn’t an issue for long. The point here is that while Cirque du Soleil might not appear to be as
traditionally “manly” a form of entertainment as, say, UFC, you’d be
ignorant to let the makeup and spandex fool you. This is the manliest circus on earth.
From its self-made entrepreneurial beginnings to the industrial magic that goes into
making the shows happen, Cirque du Soleil is a massive global homage to resourcefulness
and creative thinking.Check out this graphic of history’s most legendary circus
families.To understand my change of heart about Cirque,
you’re going to need to know a few things about O, the show that brought
about the change. First, it’s not your typical circus show — or even Cirque show.
The entire stage, basically, is a giant pool of water, extending well into the wings.
(Eau, pronounced “o,” means water in French.) Everything in the show
takes place in and around this gigantic indoor pond, and the breadth and depth of the
illusions that the show’s creators have devised are incredible. Performers dive from
many stories up in the air into the water. Seconds later, a performer will run across the
surface of the water in the same exact spot, implying some sort of rapid-moving invisible
underwater stage. A flaming boat floats by. At one point, dozens of legs poke out from the
surface of the water and then disappear again, without ever revealing the swimmers’
torsos. It’s wild. And, look, I’m not going to lie — there were a lot of
dancing clowns.
