banana split

Had comp tickets last night to the final dress rehearsal of Cirque du Soleil's new Banana Shpeel. Let me back up by saying that I had never seen a Cirque du Soleil show before last June, when I was in Vegas. I remember seeing ads for previous Cirque ventures that had come to Chicago and thinking that it looked too weird, too over the top, too...too. You know? But they do that well in Vegas, you see, and so I decided that in order to make the experience complete, I needed to take the plunge and see a Cirque show. I saw The Beatles Love, and I loved it. Every scene tied those familiar songs (re-mixed so that even they seemed new and exciting) with dance, acrobatics, aerials, roller skates! Each thing was bigger and more impressive than the next and I sat on the edge of my seat the whole time wondering what they would do next. I left the theater amazed, impressed and pledged my troth to the Cirque du Soleil. That's right, I wanted to find an Elvis chapel and marry Love. Je t'aime, je t'adore, c'est magnifique, le sange est sur le branche etc etc etc. Next time a show rolled into town, I vowed my support.

Fast forward to the announcement of Banana Shpeel - singing, dancing and vaudeville, right up my proverbial alley? And actually, next door to my actual alley, at the Chicago Theatre next to the office. Fast forward again to last night, final dress rehearsal and the house was jam packed. BIG SPOILERS BELOW!!!

Let me say right away that the concept of the show - an old fashioned vaudeville type variety show, with a funky Cirque twist in dance, slapstick, etc, is a good one. There were lots of different elements kind of thrown together, an Uncle Jocko style vaudeville impressario by the name of Shmelky and two clown emcees, running an audition for Shmelky's show. A very long running gag of people being "chosen" from the audience - including the World's Oldest Mime with a walker, a gawky skinny dude with big glasses who did modern dance, most often in his underwear, and a guy who reminded me of Jemaine Clement, whose "talent" was imitating regular people with foot problems. This mainly entailed his wandering around the stage going "ow. ow. ow." And so on. These slapstick skits were placed among scenes from the actual show, Shmelky's Banana Shpeel which included singing, lots of dancing, magic, a little crazy Shakespeare (!) and some assorted interesting things - a puppet come to life who juggled bright red hats (impressive!) a girl who spun these little cloth things on her feet while lying on her back. Then she juggled a guitar with her feet, and spun those cloth things on her hands and feet while standing on her head. Question: how do you learn that you have a talent for such a thing? I don't know, but talented she undoubtedly was. There was also a fabulously hot guy who did some dancing/acrobatics with a pole - hard to explain. Was clearly the highlight of the show.

So....It was an okay show. Good but not great. I laughed at the slapstick stuff, but some of it went on WAY too long. I really enjoyed the dancing and the pretty costumes (there is a part where Shmelky breaks up a clown fight by yelling "Shiny object! Shiny object!" and I am TOTALLY the same way.) It felt a little disjointed, and there was some, but not much, effort to put the crazy characters in it and sometimes it seemed like they were in an entirely different show. If I had never seen a Cirque show before, I don't think I would have wanted to see another one based on this. I think they were somewhat limited, also, by the size of the stage. No aerial stuff, which was too bad. I would actually see it again, later in the run, just to see if they made any adjustments/attempts to tighten anything up. It should have been Spectacular, Spectacular, with no words in the vernacular to describe this great event... it was a nice evening out, and fun to see, but I don't think anywhere near the standard of the show I saw in Vegas. This is perhaps unfair, since it is the only point of reference I have to Cirque performances. But it's what I've got, and so take this for what you will.

I am channeling Hedy Weiss now and giving this a "Somewhat recommended."