Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net

Synopsis:  After a year-long close down, Cirque du Soleil rehearses to relaunch their “O” show in Las Vegas (Streaming on Amazon Prime)

Setting: Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas. The show “O” is about to begin. Offstage a tech speaks into his headset, “Clowns at the ready.” For over a year, the clowns had been on standby.  Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net takes us behind the scenes of “O” as they ready for opening night.

Shuttered for a year, due to the COVID pandemic, Cirque du Soleil is about to begin again, with two months to rehearse. An entertainment phenomenon with shows worldwide, in less than forty years, the group ushered in a new kind of circus. Founded in Montreal, Canada by stilt walkers Guy Laliberté and Gilles Ste-Croix, their troupe performed “Le Grand Tour” in 1983. In their nouveau cirque, acrobats performed theatrical shows with storyline.  The themes are typically moody with characters that are a little freaky.

Additionally, animal acts are not included. Accounts of abuse and maltreatment of circus animals, including elephants, bears and big cats are legion. So, Cirque du Soleil, was a big step forward for animal welfare in entertainment.

Before I ever attended a show, I knew Cirque du Soleil by reputation, which included an exceptionelle episode of The Simpsons, “Skinner’s Sense of Snow.” The ep begins with the Simpson family at a big tent performance from Cirque de Puree. The performers are French-Canadians. The Québécois ringmaster wears a top hat, formal suit jacket, and, instead of pants, a costume that gives him the body of an ostrich. The acrobats, all in bizarre unitards and headdresses, contort themselves into a multitude of shapes, including an elephant. Yay, for the cartoon cruelty-free circus.

Amazingly, Cirque du Soleil is much like Cirque de Purée in spirit and appearance. They even share the bit wherein a “local” is pulled from the audience and then, with a dose of circus magic, flies around the theater.

“O” began playing at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas in 1998.  It includes a very talented group of athletes, including acrobats, swimmers, and divers who perform in and above a giant pool. According to the show’s creator, “O”‘s concept involves “the memory of a theater.” Not a theater that featured children’s plays or comedies. No, this poor theater seems only to have hosted productions that were lugubrious and bizarre.

The press kit for “O” informs us that “the grace of water and the idea of infinity inspire the artists.” Sure. But they are probably more inspired by the reality of a paycheck. When the show, like so much of the world, shut down in March 2020 to curtail the spread of Covid, the performers and much of the staff were laid off. The company went into bankruptcy and was reformed during the pandemic.

Prior to performers and other staff returning to work in April 2021, the documentary profiles a number of the workers. We see them trying to stay performance-fit and keep themselves financially afloat. One of the athletes is a single dad, who quietly voices his concerns about stretching every dollar while he makes lunch for his kids.

Bill is a swimmer who started out his career as a synchronized swimmer nearly twenty years earlier. Amber, a former gymnast, is an acrobat who has weathered eight surgeries for back and shoulder repair. At home, she practices on a lollipop lyra, which is a very cool-looking solo trapeze contraption. She spins round and round in her living room while her fluffy little white dog lounges on the sofa. 

When the Cirque people return to the Bellagio for rehearsals, they wear masks as they huff & puff through their routines. The swimmers try to keep six feet between each other while in the pool. Ironically, the safest group of performers– safe from Covid, anyway– seem to be the scuba divers who are at the pool’s bottom. They wait to position divers and intervene in the case of an emergency. I’m not sure if they hide under a platform when the divers come plummeting down like rockets.

Because of disuse, the hydraulics for the pool platforms need to be fixed, and the giant pool refilled. Just one more labor on the poor Colorado River that supplies ninety percent of the desert city’s water. But don’t think of the real world’s problems right now, think of the mysterious world the show is creating. Part of that magic is the costumes…

First, worn elastic needs to be tossed and performers re-fitted. The artists are virtually sewn into a vast array of unitards. “The Red Dress Character” has a showy–you guessed it- red dress. The performer who plays her, explains that her character is “beautiful, yet broken…she cannot give or receive love.” So much for any joy or whimsy. Call the paramedics to bring some anti-depressants, STAT!

Acrobat Amber is a ‘zebra’ at one point in the show. Who knows where the theater’s memory pulls from to conjure a herd of zebras, but several artists wear black & white stripey unitards with a hypnotizing spinny pattern. I liked the tight-fitting hoods that sport an uber long synthetic ponytail. Meanwhile, poor Bill the swimmer is stuck with a rubber wig and a veritable mask of water-proof makeup. 

There are quick shots of fire eaters and even a seated figure going up in flames–Quick, push them into the bazillion gallon pool! I feel like things are dangerous enough with drowning risks, so I was surprised that they upped the danger with performers spewing flames all over the place.

The docu features a dramatic countdown ’til opening night. I was pretty sure things would go off without a hitch, even though they’d show occasional trapeze misses.

My fave piece was the acrobats performing on a spooky steel-framed skeleton boat rigged high above the pool. Le bateau swings to and fro like a pendulum. The ghostly sailors do parallel bar-style routines. If gymnasts at a competition miss the bar, they tumble onto a fat mat several feet away. If these athletes miss, they’ll plunge stories down into the pool.

The athleticism is incredible, along with the transporting design, but sometimes the film feels less like a documentary and more like a commercial.

A little tea is spilled: one acrobat, divorced from her ex-trapeze partner, declares her new trapeze partner an “upgraded version” of her ex-husband/work partner. Raaar…

But there is no discussion of benefits or lack thereof. Do the performers feel well-compensated? How long are their contracts? When injury/age ends their careers, how hard is it to find new employment? 

Early on, we see one of the acrobats, a Frenchman, tending to a precarious experiment; his mini vineyard. It made me wonder how the athletes like Vegas. And what of the women performers– what kind of maternity policy does the company have? Do the men get paternity leave? And what of the performers’ complexions? All that thick, water-proof makeup would seem to invite acne.

“O” continues to play in Vegas. If water-based shows aren’t to your taste, “KÀ” features twins tumbling and flying away from “spearman and archers.” Be assured that the madmen at Cirque keep coming up with show ideas. “KOOZA” sounds kind of sinister: a naive clown is transferred to a bizarre and exotic world. Rest assured, all of the Cirque shows (touring or in Vegas) will be strange and populated by very physically abled performers, possibly costumed as a blade of grass or a meteorite. And to think it all started with a couple of stilt walkers in Montreal. Fantastique!

Movie Loon’s Movie Review Shortcut:

Grade:  C+

Cut to the Chase:  An interesting behind-the-scenes look at Cirque du Soleil, but as a documentary movie, it falls a bit short.

Humor Highlight:  A troupe of costumed Cirque performers frolic through the public areas of the Bellagio. Surprised tourists are fixated.