Circus failure
Mar. 30th, 2009 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gementOh, I forgot. Friday night I went to Circus Contraption's current show, "The Show To End All Shows."
I'm sad to say I can't recommend it. I loved their previous stuff, they've got some spectacular performers, but the conceit this time around is that they're a fading 70's circus (so nix all the steampunk gothoid chic) with an abusive ringmaster.
They're really good at projecting any effect they set their minds to. They set their minds to making us feel uncomfortable for the performers and showing acts that aren't very impressive. They succeeded. It was awful, and I kept waiting for the good bits, and they never came.
They needed to hang more of a lampshade on the misogynist and racist crap (which I'm sure was deliberately tacky, but didn't come through ironically enough to cross the line into funny). They needed to nix the fat suit on the aging showgirl entirely. They needed to actually have some spectacular acts with hilariously bad trimmings. They needed to let the madman with the KISS tongue be a mad god instead of a tragically broken-down sideshow. They needed to use the band better and more often, and they needed to hook the crowd in before the ringmaster turned ugly. (Tip: Don't have the exciting tent revival bit after you've circulated the frantic note through the audience telling us not to trust him.)
A few bits were truly arresting and moving. I loved the Evil Knievel stuntman, their aerialist is still very technically impressive, and the band is always awesome. Some of the bits that they made awful were really convincingly, arrestingly awful, like the aerialist doing a full-on tacky poledance and the show carrying on in the face of terrible injuries. If we'd already been hooked in, it could have worked. But it was just... bad and bad and bad all over, with a few glimmers here and there of the real Circus Contraption underneath.
When we got home, after ranting some more, J said, "And, just from a purely chauvinist point of view, the girls this year weren't as sexy."
I said, "Those were the same girls as last time. I remember their faces. Same women."
He blinked. He said, "Wow, they really really failed, if they managed to make those same girls that much less attractive."
And that's all I have to say about that.
I'm sad to say I can't recommend it. I loved their previous stuff, they've got some spectacular performers, but the conceit this time around is that they're a fading 70's circus (so nix all the steampunk gothoid chic) with an abusive ringmaster.
They're really good at projecting any effect they set their minds to. They set their minds to making us feel uncomfortable for the performers and showing acts that aren't very impressive. They succeeded. It was awful, and I kept waiting for the good bits, and they never came.
They needed to hang more of a lampshade on the misogynist and racist crap (which I'm sure was deliberately tacky, but didn't come through ironically enough to cross the line into funny). They needed to nix the fat suit on the aging showgirl entirely. They needed to actually have some spectacular acts with hilariously bad trimmings. They needed to let the madman with the KISS tongue be a mad god instead of a tragically broken-down sideshow. They needed to use the band better and more often, and they needed to hook the crowd in before the ringmaster turned ugly. (Tip: Don't have the exciting tent revival bit after you've circulated the frantic note through the audience telling us not to trust him.)
A few bits were truly arresting and moving. I loved the Evil Knievel stuntman, their aerialist is still very technically impressive, and the band is always awesome. Some of the bits that they made awful were really convincingly, arrestingly awful, like the aerialist doing a full-on tacky poledance and the show carrying on in the face of terrible injuries. If we'd already been hooked in, it could have worked. But it was just... bad and bad and bad all over, with a few glimmers here and there of the real Circus Contraption underneath.
When we got home, after ranting some more, J said, "And, just from a purely chauvinist point of view, the girls this year weren't as sexy."
I said, "Those were the same girls as last time. I remember their faces. Same women."
He blinked. He said, "Wow, they really really failed, if they managed to make those same girls that much less attractive."
And that's all I have to say about that.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-30 09:39 pm (UTC)It's possible that we just hit a night with really bad timing, and J was in a bad mood which always colors things. I'd made a sincere attempt to enjoy it, though, which usually balances it out.
I've also seen them work miracles of shimmy and grace and creeping horror and absolute enthrallment on an audience, so watching them do "deliberately clumsy" was jarring and disappointing when I came looking for beautiful spectacle. This may be my way of saying "Only do what you're already good at," which is not necessarily what artists need to do. *shrug*
The band is awesome, and sounded good. When I say "use them more and better," I'm again recalling my previous experience, where they nearly got the tent revival going spontaneously on music alone, without anyone trying to lead it, because the band is that good and they can be wielded as a hell of a weapon.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-30 09:50 pm (UTC)