Armies of ants scramble to carry an egg sac no larger than a grain of rice. A butterfly slowly twists and shrugs its way out of a cocoon’s papery shell. Crickets in green armature slip quietly through jungles of grass.
If you have ever turned over a leaf to discover a coven of tiny insects shrouded in a gauzy lacuna, you know that the insect kingdom is a miraculous, often unseen network of worlds inside worlds. Such buggy wonders are the subject of Cirque du Soleil’s “Ovo,” the shimmering and evocative show under the blue and yellow Grand Chapiteau at Atlantic Station through Jan. 2.
Directed by Brazilian choreographer Deborah Colker and featuring a score of gentle bossa novas and uplifting Latin dance numbers, “Ovo” is a joyful celebration of life and love that seems far removed from Cirque’s physically extreme “Kooza,” which titillated circus-goers in early 2009. While “Ovo” hatches all the aerial prowess, athletic derring-do and goofy slapstick that the Montreal-based troupe is known for, it applies its magic with a delicate hand, capturing the quiet hums and throbbing cadences of insect life with giddy playfulness.
In the loosely sketched narrative, a giant egg appears on the horizon, awing the inhabitants of this buzzing underworld and setting forth a parade of pouncing fleas, flying scarabs, sexy spiders — and an airborne pas de deux of love-struck butterflies. A tubby Ladybug (Michelle Matlock) falls for a blue-spiked-and-spangled Foreigner (Francois-Guillaume Leblanc), and the antenna-wearing master of ceremonies Flipo (Joseph Collard) whips up a vaudeville of La Cucaracha-meets-Beethoven silliness. It's a trio of superb clowns.
As designed by Liz Vandal (costumes) and Gringo Cardia (sets and props) “Ovo” is a delightful, ever-evolving landscape of flowering tropical plants and woodsy wonders — a place that teems, twitches, flutters and flinches with energy.
Acrobatic ants use their feet to juggle what look like slices of kiwi and corncobs that can double as conga drums. The shaggy caterpillar-like Carimbo of the Creatura (Lee Brearley) slinks his four-legged self across the stage, morphing into a variety of configurations, revealing a diaper-like jockstrap, even loosing his pants for a moment. A hairy Spiderman (Li Wei) rides upside down across a “slack wire” on a unicycle, remaining in character all the way. And in the delightful “Trampo-wall” finale, a cadre of crickets bounces from a spring-y floor, attaching themselves Velcro-style to a wall. Ping! How fun.
“Ovo” isn’t the most intellectual or Dada-esque or garishly appointed show in the Cirque repertoire. (And that’s a good thing.) But it is surely one of the happiest and most soulful. Colker uses a seamless movement and musical vocabulary to weave an intricate tale, and her ensemble members have a sure sense of the tics and twitches of their winged and many-legged characters.
Cirque has laid a fantastic egg.
Theater review
Cirque du Soleil’s “Ovo”
Grade: B+
8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. 4 p.m. Fridays. 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Sundays. Through Jan. 2. $35-$255. Cirque du Soleil, Atlanta Station. 1-800-450-1480, cirquedusoleil.com
Bottom line: Cirque reveals the brilliant energy of insect life.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
