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Season Reviews: Cirque Dreams - Jungle Fantasy
BY ROY BRADBROOK
This is a show that could be reviewed in just one word - WOW - simply because from the time you enter the theater to the time that the cast take their last bow I defy anyone to be anything other than bewitched and enthralled by Neil Goldberg's imaginative creation, now presented by Gateway Playhouse and running at the Patchogue Theater until September 8.
You are immediately struck by the stage setting and backdrop, which brings to mind a psychedelic forest complete with large mushrooms that could well be one of the magic variations judging by the colorful assault on your visual senses that occurs during the show. Cirque Dreams is the latest of twelve original productions since the first was staged at Bally's in Atlantic City in the early 1990s. There are now permanent shows at Branson, Mo. and at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg Va. The early years of the company were marked by litigation from the world famous Cirque du Soleil seeking to stop the use of the word Cirque but three years ago a federal court ruled that the word is generic and from then on the North American market for this Cirque company really took off. This new creation that debuted at the Trump Plaza at Atlantic City last year is now on a major tour across the U.S. that will last for several more years. Back at their base in Florida, the next production and the one after that are already being worked on.
Performers are drawn from all over the world for these shows. Master jugglers, acrobats, contortionists and trapeze artists and many have impressive resumes as international gymnasts. Cirque Dreams features 24 artists who come from the Ukraine, Russia, Mongolia, Canada and the USA. But this is not just a display of technical prowess. In Cirque Dreams the performers become animals, from frogs to owls to lizards, spiders, giraffes, and monkeys and the whole spectacle is cleverly intertwined and choreographed into a spectacular entity.
There is so much happening that you must never take your eyes off the stage for a moment of the action packed two-hour show. The colors are incredible, especially in the second part of the show when over 10,000 watts of ultra violet light make the magic deepen as the performers and their costumes wildly fluoresce. Even the music is very different as a Lady Bug vocalist and narrator (Julia Langley) is accompanied by the most striking violinist you will ever see. Jared Burnett has long blond hair, seems to be almost seven feet tall, and has a physique that suggests that he would also do well as a gymnast. By the way, he morphs into a Soul Tree and is a very talented musician as well.
Every one of the acts is a wonderful performance in its own right. The beautiful contortionist lizards, who get into positions that seem anatomically impossible and incredibly painful are in fact three very talented performers from Mongolia. A soulful frog deftly juggles in a way that makes everything look so simple. Two men balancing on a plank that rests on a cylinder perform increasingly complex routines.
In fact, because of the very high standard of each performer, the occasional moment of difficulty acts as a salutary reminder of the degree of difficulty and in some parts, the degree of danger that exists. Safety is paramount throughout. The company and performers are trained in falling safely but your heart can still reside in your mouth as you watch acts that depend just on the strength of grasp of a hand to perform complicated, graceful feats twenty plus feet above the stage with no net, but only a crash mattress under them. You marvel at the strength and agility needed for the balancing acts and you will laugh at the antics of the emu that struts periodically across the stage. Gifted mime clowns from time to time, invite the audience to participate - not as contortionists, jugglers or aerialists, I hasten to add!
Everyone in the cast, plus all of the unseen backstage people who were responsible for the stage settings and riggings fully deserved the prolonged standing ovation at the end. The only pity was that the show had to end, a sentiment being echoed by many others in the audience as they filed out, enthusing about the evening's entertainment.
Cirque Dreams is a wonderful evening of pure entertainment suitable for all ages. The Gateway management is to be congratulated for putting on this incredible non-stop action packed show at a ticket price that families can afford. This show should be a total sellout. Go and see it and take the kids.
'Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy' in Patchogue
BY STEVE PARKS
August 31, 2007
It's a diverting back-to-school entertainment for kids, enjoying a last playful indulgence, and for parents, relieved that their progeny will soon be back on their day jobs. "Cirque Dreams" spans the generations with its "Jungle Fantasy" national tour, now proliferating in Patchogue.
The Florida-based troupe - which fought in court to retain its right to the name "cirque" against the Canadian juggernaut Cirque du Soleil - puts its own theatrical brand on the circus arts. Arty, yes, but less aloof than Soleil.
Although there are plenty of jungle "animals," there are no PETA picketers protesting their treatment, given that all of them are human animals, beginning with an emu that hatches before our eyes.
A seductive circus barker (Julia Langley) posing as a ladybug introduces each act in song, from "Never Bug a Lady" to "Jungle-ibrium." Besides a pulsating recorded soundtrack, she's accompanied by a walking "Soul Tree" (Jared Burnett) who plays a mean violin.
Acrobats, tumblers, jugglers, aerialists and clowns - all in costumes that recall "Where the Wild Things Are" - populate Jon Craine's wildly verdant set, cavorting to the thumping choreography of Tara Jeanne Vallee.
Among the most spellbinding are the contorting lizards (Mongolians Uranmandakh Amarsanaa, Buyankhishig Ganbaatar and Odgerel Oyunbaatar). Together they twist double-jointedly into undulations that, with six legs among them, suggest a giant insect writhing in delight over its moment in the sun.
Vine-swinging aerial acts seem repetitive until a pair of owls (Ivan Dotsenko of Ukraine and Carly Sheridan of Canada) shed their feathers and perch on a trapeze 20 feet up to dance a full-bodied mating ritual. For the record, only a couple of emus (the American Zachary Carroll and the Russian Sergey Zamotin), procreate on stage. But it's all just birds and bees, nothing that rates even a PG.
Adding to the species diversity, we get a warm-blooded juggling frog (Ruslan Dmytruk of Ukraine) bouncing up to eight balls on a hard-surface lily pad. Among the most crowd-pleasing critters are the giraffes. It might be a stretch to think of these tree-grazers as nimble, but Vladimir Dovgan of Ukraine and Anatoliy Yeniy of Russia will have you believing anything after their four-story teeterboard balancing act, and especially after they master a stack of cans rolling in precarious verticality.
Of course, it wouldn't be a wild kingdom without kings. The lionized strength acrobats, Russians Serguei Slavski, Alexander Tolstikov and Sergey Parshin, reign impressively in a tremblingly subtle ballet of brawn.
In under two hours, "Jungle Fantasy" takes you on a safari of the imagination.
CIRQUE DREAMS JUNGLE FANTASY. Created and directed by Neil Goldberg, score and musical direction by Jill Diane Winters. Gateway Playhouse at Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts, 71 E. Main St., Patchogue, through Sept. 8. Tickets $37-$43, call 631-286- 1133 or visit gatewayplayhouse .com. Seen Tuesday.
Copyright (c) 2007, Newsday, Inc.
Cirque Dreams’ Delivers High-Flying Fantasy, Quietly
BY LEE DAVIS
Aug 30, 2007
My, but the modern circus is a gussied up production.No longer a circus but a “cirque,” modeled upon the European and Canadian model, mixed in with a touch of discreet Las Vegas and a lot of Disney. Such is “Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy,” the latest import from Florida and Atlantic City brought to the Patchogue Theatre by the hardworking folks at the Gateway Playhouse.
The eponymous jungle is an inflatable, transportable set. Flinging themselves before it is a cast composed of tumblers, acrobats, aerialists, jugglers and a couple of not very funny clowns, all garbed in highly stylized, Julie Taymor-influenced costumes depicting restless jungle critters. From the very first moments of the evening to its showbizzy climax, there’s ceaseless music, movement and dancing. And for all the Las Vegas style ornamentation around them, the acts are very good and, in a couple of cases, sensational.
The original score by Jill Diane Winters throbs with jungle drums and sighs with soaring violins. It’s all on tape or hard drive or something; the only live performers besides the circus acts are Julie Langley, a pleasant enough singer singing foolish lyrics, and Jared Burnett, a towering, gyrating musician with an electric violin, who’s garbed in some sort of Egyptian getup, and listed in the program as “Soul Tree.” Ms. Langley is outfitted with a couple of waving button eyes on her headdress and identified as “Lady Bug,” which gives rise to some twaddle about jungle spells.
And that’s about all that qualifies as a plot, and the only live, human sounds in the entire production. All else save the recorded music is done silently, for each of the acts is what we used to call in the nights of nightclubs “dumb acts,” not a pejorative term but a signal to agents that there was no talking in the act, and therefore, it could appear in any country without a language problem.
Most of these “dumb acts” originated in European countries, where there was plenty of work in various international cirques, and the cast of “Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy” reflects this, with performers coming from Mongolia, Ukraine, Russia, Canada, and, oh yes, the U.S.
The ground-bound acts consist of a master juggler, keeping more balls in the air than it’s possible to count, several teams of rapid fire balancers of all sorts of objects, and an array of tumblers that spin and gyrate at breakneck speed, and one pair of astonishing balancers who totter ever skyward on precarious pyramids of objects that have no business being the underpinnings of human beings.
This sort of breathlessness is duplicated in a man and woman pair of aerialists working mostly on what is known in the business as aerial tissues—long, brightly colored lengths of silk that fall to the stage floor from a cable that appears and disappears into the flies, and from which they whirl and somersault, climb and swing in breath-catching combinations. Their daredevil, without-a-net flying utilizes a trapeze, too, in the second act, and though there isn’t the heart in the throat flying through the air that became the signature of American circuses, there’s plenty of dangerous tricks that the duo do.
All of this is good clean fun, surrounded and permeated by over-the-top wriggling figures that slither and bounce and sometimes evolve into a few bits and pieces of Tara Jeanne Vallee’s choreography. It’s definitely a family show, a feast for the eye if not the brain. And obviously a big moneymaker for Neil Goldberg, the entrepreneur from Pompano Beach Florida, who has created an entertainment empire out of Cirques de just about anything.
“Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy” continues at the Patchogue Theatre nightly, with plenty of matinees for the wee ones, through September 8. The box office number is 286-1133.
Run Away With Cirque Dreams
By Shana Braff In the longstanding vein of sensational touring productions, Neil Goldberg and Cirque Productions have once more redefined the circus adding a European sensibility to vivid and imaginative first-rate theatrics alongside world-class acrobatics.
Neil Goldberg’s Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy is being presented by Gateway Playhouse at the Patchogue Theatre, which still maintains the exquisite ambience of its vaudeville days back in the 1930s. The setting offers a refreshing dichotomy to Cirque’s cutting edge nouveau performance art. This whimsical extravaganza will run for just 23 performances from August 23rd through September 8th.
Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy is an action packed, two-hour theatrical adrenaline rush that uplifts one to a realm of fantasy and magic while heightening the senses and imbuing the audience with the belief that anything imaginable is indeed possible through seemingly impossible feats being accomplished right before their very eyes.
An international cast includes agile aerialists, freakishly flexible contortionists, vine swinging creatures that seem to float nymph-like, sturdy strongmen, and buoyant balancers in possession of seemingly superhuman equilibrium. These elements bring to life the jungle reverie in an abundantly vivid Broadway setting with superbly innovative set designs, dazzling special effects, original music score, fresh choreography, lively puppeteering, and bold glittering costumes. Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy is a breathtakingly beautiful epic joyride through uncharted terrain that the entire family can explore together.
This is the latest brainchild from Cirque Productions, creators of the international performance and touring sensations Cirque Ingenieux, Cirque Dreams Coobrila, and Cirque Dreams Illumination, and follows in the company’s 15-year tradition of pushing the envelope. This new reinvention of theatrical circus artistry has garnered rave reviews from both critics and theatergoers alike.
Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy with its pounding jungle beats, psychedelic lighting, and glam glittering costumes evokes the impression of a futuristic dance club from a parallel universe. The original music score by Jill Diane Winters is haunting, pulsating, and hypnotic.
The music being pre-recorded takes nothing away from the overall showmanship of the performance and the dynamic singing of American Julia Langley, as the Lady Bug is live. Langley is a professional singer, actress, cabaret performer and arts educator. She began performing with Cirque Productions in 2005 as a vocalist in Neil Goldberg’s Cirque Branson. Past roles include Velma Kelly in Chicago and the Baker’s Wife in Stephen Sondheim’s Into The Woods.
The strikingly toned and statuesque Jared Burnett, another American, also performs live electric violin. He has performed on MTV, ABC, CBS, WB, Nickelodeon, and Ed McMahon’s Next Star. His unique violin technique has been a featured highlight presentation at Universal Studios Orlando, City Walk in recent years. Jared joined the cast of Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy in March 2006 and has created the role of the Soul Tree.
Act I unfolds subdued in black and white, in contrast by Act II the stage is lit up by 10,000 ultraviolet lights on a multimillion-dollar stage set.
Some highlights of the altogether stellar Jungle Fantasy are the soaring aerialists duo which evokes two souls ascending to heaven gracefully entwined as one, billowing far above the confines of the world with their shadows emanating behind them. They appear to be mirror images complimenting one another as they reach unsurpassed heights of ecstasy.
During the show’s finale the entire audience and performers alike were all exuberantly clapping in unison with impeccable timing signifying the real connection and intimacy bridged between stage and spectator. Cirque Dreams, a melting pot of multiple cultures from all over the world speaks the universal language of awe. This daring, ethereal dreamscape with spiritual undertones heralds the dawn of the circus of the new millennium.
