(no subject)

[skygiants]

We saw Duel Reality tonight, a show that billed itself accurately as "circus competition Romeo and Juliet."

What do I mean by 'circus competition?' well, the Montagues and the Capulets are the Red Team and the Blue Team, and they are aggressively engaged in a competitive sport, and the sport is Circus. We are doing aerials! We are building human pyramids! We are strutting around the stage flipping each other the bird and holding up our hand in the shape of an L on our foreheads while a poor stressed referee measures the exact precision of our pole slides! We are ANGRILY JUGGLING!

(... obviously we, as in me and genarti and sandrylene, were not doing any of this. But we did have seats on stage so it FELT a bit more like we were doing this than is usual. They gave us all colored armbands so we could cheer on Team Blue and occasionally a Team Blue circus person would run round to enthuse over what another Team Blue person was doing and give us a high five.)

What do I mean by 'Romeo and Juliet'? well, we had a forbidden love story between two members of the rival teams, of course, and also every so often a circus performer would valiantly recite a line of Shakespeare more or less at random, and also the soundtrack was mostly made up of what I can only call image songs that also string together various lines from the play over the circus scenes that vaguely correspond to the narrative. Tybalt's involved a lot of "king of cats".

Moments in the show when I had to cover my mouth not to laugh out loud:

- when the stressed-out referee character came out and performed a passionate diabolo juggling solo to the mournful strains of an image song with the lyrics "it's hard to be in the middle ... red is not my color .... blue isn't either .... all colors fade to grey ...."

- when Juliet, enraged against the dichotomy of Red and Blue, stalked round the stage angrily stripping the colored shirts off the rest of the cast to reveal black sports bras and undershirts On Everyone Except Romeo. Romeo simply did not get to have a shirt anymore.

- when (after Romeo's triumphant topless aerial solo) the cast explained that they decided they did not want their version to end in tragedy, and all started dancing onstage while Romeo and Juliet snuggled happily on a trapeze and the lead vocalist sang a bright, jazzy version of "for never was there a tale of more woe/than that of Juliet and her Romeo" on repeat

I did not laugh when Tybalt and Mercutio dueled by furiously doing competitive acrobatics off either end of a giant seesaw because it was extremely cool and effective and I did believe someone might die, but the fact the remains that Tybalt and Mercutio did duel on a giant seesaw and I am duty-bound to report it.

Here's the trailer, which gives you a strong sense of the various cool human tricks on display:

Watch on YouTube

As we were leaving the theater, I said to my companions, "That was an incredible time and I'm so glad we saw it, and I AM DESPERATE TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE MUSICAL DECISIONS THAT WERE MADE. I don't understand! I need to understand!!"

Unfortunately, there is nothing at all about the musical choices in the program, so I am probably doomed never to understand. REALLY a great time though.

Comments

[sovay]

I did not laugh when Tybalt and Mercutio dueled by furiously doing competitive acrobatics off either end of a giant seesaw because it was extremely cool and effective and I did believe someone might die, but the fact the remains that Tybalt and Mercutio did duel on a giant seesaw and I am duty-bound to report it.

This sounds like the best possible outcome of childhood exposure to the barn-raising dance in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

[brownbetty]

You almost want to write the fanfic of "group project that resulted in this staging"

[whimsyful]

Oh wow those acrobatics look incredible. I would also love to know who came up with the music & staging choices for this though....

[snowynight]

The acrobatics is impressive! It looks really fun to watch!

[kaberett]

Oh my goodness.

[sushiflop]

What a Spectacle this looks to be!! I don't even need the veneer of story to get really engrossed in watching humans juggle each other :o this sounds fascinating and delightful

[cyphomandra]

I am desperate to know whether this is only the first of their planned Shakespeare circus duel adaptation series.

(I have never seen a staging of Macbeth that really works for me, but maybe the problem all along has been my lack of imaginative leaps :D )

[hilarita]

That sounds really cool. I'm a little confused about the ending then having a jazzy song about the tale of woe - was this meant to be a counterpoint, and point out that a hairsbreadth separates the tale of woe from not being woeful?

The vibe reminds me of a student production I helped do lighting for, where we did it in the round, and the ball was a town disco. So it was very up close and personal, with thumping bass (hey, it was the late 90s...). Sadly I can't remember the specifics of the music now, because I was too busy dealing with tricky lighting cues.

The duel on a giant see-saw sounds like it's going to stay with you for a while. Maybe you can email the company and ask about their musical choices? Perhaps their music director would be delighted to nerd out at you?

[vass]

That sounds amazing. Strong work on not laughing out loud!

[kate_nepveu]

okay the website says

"Originally Created and Produced with Virgin Voyages"

and my brain locked up imagining performing that at sea!

[troisoiseaux]

WILD. Very cool!!!! But also, just, wild????

[kore]

.....WOW

[musesfool]

Amazing acrobatics! I sort of just cast Batkids in my head (Jason for red and Dick for Blue) and it all made sense. *g*

[conuly]

That's... wow, that sounds... just... wow.

[ashelterofpages]

This sounds wonderfully bonkers, which is my favorite flavor of things to do with SHakespeare.

[genarti]

Afterward, we went to a bubble tea place that was open late and, among other things, discussed what other Shakespeare plays we most wanted to see done as a circus show. skygiants was indeed advocating Macbeth! (My pick was The Tempest, admittedly a rather basic pick but one whose plot-to-spectacle ratio feels well suited to the medium, imo.)

[genarti]

It was such fun! I've said this to you already, but I'll say it again here; I need to see more circus shows always, but of the ones I've seen, none of them have really been what I would call "entirely coherent" or "fully thematically consistent or comprehensible" but all of them have been just enormous fun to watch. I love seeing cool human tricks live!

And it was really so, so cool to have the seats on the stage. I suspect the people in the house had a better perspective for appreciating some of the larger-scale choreography, but I wouldn't trade; seeing everything being done close up, watching the performers' expressions and seeing the sheer muscular effort in everything that simultaneously looked effortlessly easy -- all of that was wonderful. (And it's nice to feel absolutely certain that the performers have noticed you chairdancing in the party scene and are gratified by it, lol!)

[osprey_archer]

Oh WOW what an EXPERIENCE. I truly have no deep thoughts about this but I am glad you saw it and I wish to experience something similar, because it simply sounds like so!!! MUCH!!!!!

And although normally I don't hold with giving tragedies happy endings, in this particular case I'll allow it.

[skygiants]

god I might need to get on YouTube and watch the barn-raising dance again

[skygiants]

oh yeah absolutely. Tell me everything about the Process!

[skygiants]

DESPERATE TO KNOW ALL ABOUT IT

[skygiants]

The cool human tricks were so cool, everyone was so impressive and clearly having a great time doing it

[skygiants]

It was a hell of an evening!

[skygiants]

oh yeah absolutely, we had a lively conversation afterwards about whether the veneer of story was really necessary at all but the humans juggling each other was unequivocally incredible

[skygiants]

I CAN ONLY HOPE, I WANT CIRCUS MACBETH SO BAD