Cirque du Soleil’s Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities is a Steampunk Extravaganza
Cirque du Soleil’s Kurios: Cabinet of Curiousities, which has been playing at London’s Royal Albert Hall from January to March, has the sketchiest of premises. A professor, white hair, lab coat, in a setting best described as steampunk, turns on a machine and all kinds of acrobatic beings are set free to entertain us. None of that really matters, however, as the show is more about set and costume design, music and dance, acrobatics, and making the audience gasp in wonder, which it does by the giant steampunk handful.
In the absence of a coherent storyline, Kurios is separated into a series of individual set pieces, each of which could be the showstopper to almost any other show. Musicians play a frenzied tune, sending dancers cavorting around the circular stage, while chairs are thrown into the air, caught and strutted upon, and drummers beat out a wild rhythm. Ladies, wearing spandex costumes in otherworldly colours appear upon the aforementioned steampunk hand and contort themselves into near-impossible shapes while perched on top of each other. A man balances on top of a board, on top of a ball, on top of a tower of precariously stacked tubes, on top of a moving swing. Acrobats bounce upon a transparent trampoline stretched across the hall, while another hangs upside down in the lighting rig and catches them. And that’s just a flavour of the spectacles on offer.
Thankfully, despite the many astonishing feats on display, the show wisely allows the audience to relax and breathe on occasion. One set-piece, involving a female acrobat performing both in an out of a golden birdcage is both impressive and entrancingly lovely. There is also comic relief in the form of a clown. In one scene he presents us with an invisible circus, which includes an extremely dangerous invisible lion, while in another he invites a female member of the audience onto the stage and attempts to woo her, before turning into a dinosaur and then a cat, all in mime of course. Watching this, one is reminded of the grand tradition of clowning that was carried from the stage and into early cinema by the likes of Chaplin, Keaton, and Stan Laurel, and which is so much more artful than the garish, witless slapstick one normally associates with the circus. It was a pleasure to watch.
With all of this going on, one must admire the skill with which the show has been presented. While Kurios has a loose, carnival-like atmosphere with swathes of the cast often performing at once, the stage never seems swamped. It must take a great deal of craft and precision to create some semblance of order, providing a visual feast for every audience member’s vantage point, while at the same time giving off the feeling of exciting spontaneity.
Cirque du Soleil’s Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities is an exhilarating steampunk extravaganza. See it and prepare to be gobsmacked.
