Samson without his locks. Trump without his tower. Captain America without his shield.
Is Cirque du Soleil without its familiar blue-and-yellow-striped tent somehow less super-powerful, and dare we suggest, more pedestrian?
Artistic director Sean McKeown, who leads a tour of the classic "Dralion" show into metro Atlanta that trades its big top for hard tops -- Philips Arena (starting Aug. 25) and Gwinnett Arena (beginning Aug. 31) -- makes a persuasive case that Cirque remains a special experience even without its Grand Chapiteau.
And most critics who've witnessed the arena tour of the production that first visited Atlanta in a tent pitched outside Turner Field in 2000 have agreed.
While arena tours are not new for Cirque, which has trucked some of its most popular tent shows to indoor facilities since 2007, it's a first-time thing for metro Atlanta.
In an expansionist, entertainment world-conquering mode, Cirque formed its arena division that year to open up new markets where the economics of a tent tour wouldn't compute --yet where audiences demanded a dose of Canadian circus magic. It also allows the enterprise to reprise popular shows in cities such as Atlanta, traditionally one of Cirque's top U.S. markets, where the thirst for touring theatrics is apparently insatiable. .
Here's the essential math behind why "Dralion," an East-meets-West melange catapulted by Chinese acrobatics, will return to downtown and mark Cirque's first extended visit to Gwinnett County: It takes nine days to set up the Grand Chapiteau and only a dozen hours to move in an arena show.
For those concerned that two multipurpose facilities are significantly too big to deliver the intimate experience of the 2,500-seat tent, adjustments are being made, including curtaining off upper reaches and setting up the stage on one end of each arena. For instance, Gwinnett Arena, which can seat 13,000 for a concert in the round and 11,200 for a Gwinnett Gladiators hockey game, will be set up in a half-house configuration.
Hosting Cirque is a major score for the Duluth facility, acknowledged general manager Joseph Dennis, who has struggled to persuade presenters since it opened in 2003 that the metro area has enough population to support stops at Philips and Gwinnett. Among recent piggyback-booking successes: the Harlem Globetrotters and Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Though Gwinnett Arena's eight "Dralion" performances were on the books before Ringling Bros. tried its first two-arena metro tour stop earlier this year, Dennis believes Gwinnett Arena's success of the older circus will ensure more shared bookings in the future. "Barnum's FUNundrum" averaged 80 percent capacity, emboldening the suburban facility to add a ninth show.
"The audience is so massive in metro Atlanta -- 4 million people," Dennis said. "I came from Nashville, and there are more people in Gwinnett County than there were in Nashville. There's plenty to go around, And I think it’s good for both venues to work together."
Over the phone from a tour stop in Indianapolis, where "Dralion" was being performed at Conseco Fieldhouse, home of the Indiana Pacers, artistic director McKeown asserted that the show is new and in some ways improved from its original tent version.
"We worked a lot with costume and staging, so there are a lot of changes" from the original that visited Atlanta in 2000, McKeown said. "As well, we changed a number of the acts. ... We really tried to increase visually what people are experiencing. Because obviously now we have more people to reach in the new environment."
A June review in The (Portland) Oregonian newspaperpraised Cirque for staging Rose Garden arena performances with "a surprising sense of intimacy you don't expect in a space that's normally home to NBA stars."
But a review from an earlier tour stop by Time Out Boston criticized what it termed "a jarring lack" of "those massive, thrilling set pieces Cirque fans have come to expect." It also suggested the set appeared "like it was pulled together from other Cirque shows' spare parts."
McKeown said he hadn't forgotten that review -- "I was a little bit shocked honestly" -- with which he, of course, disagreed. He pointed out that Cirque invested in a new, more technologically advanced set for the "Dralion" arena tour that launched last October.
"If anything we upgraded the shows for the arenas," he said. Going indoors does not limit the theatrics, McKeown added. "We have more space and more rigging points, if anything a lot more range."
With 52-performers, including 23 Chinese acrobats under the age of 25 onstage during the course of the show, those are important considerations. A six-member band plus two vocalists fills the halls with Cirque's trademark world music mix.
As before, "Dralion" draws its inspiration from Eastern philosophy and the human quest for harmony with nature. In this color-coded show, the four elements that rule the natural world are embodied by three goddesses and one male guide: air is blue; water, green; fire, red; and earth, ochre.
In the Cirque dictionary (not to be confused with Noah Webster's), a dralion is a hybrid of dragon (signifying the East) and lion (repping the West). A half dozen of the fanciful beasts command the stage at the end of act one.
They are hardly the only ones exhibiting a supernatural presence. There are aerial hoop and dance artists, men who perform acrobatic feats on the ground while balancing towering poles in the air, a hand-balancing wizard who does figures atop canes of soaring heights, artists who shoot themselves like arrows through small wooden hoops, contortionists who cluster into the shapes of structures, masters of skipping ropes and trampoline artists who do dizzying stunts off the 60-foot-wide, 26-foot-tall metallic backdrop that dominates the stage.
Taking that kind of entertainment to places such as Frisco, Texas, that have never hosted Cirque shows before has been rewarding, McKeown said. In that burgeoning Dallas suburb, he reported, "there was a crazy, screaming, standing ovation every night."
Gwinnett Arena general manager Dennis would, of course, be delighted if Duluth delivers a similar response. That would enhance the chances of Cirque paying a return visit to the facility that is booked some 120 nights a year with concerts, minor-league hockey, Arena Football, high school basketball, college gymnastics and more.
"Oh, sure," he said cheerily of the prospect. "We’ve got some open dates we could fill."
Preview
Cirque du Soleil's "Dralion"
Aug. 25-28 at Philips Arena, Aug. 31-Sept. 4 at Gwinnett Arena. Show times vary. $40-$84, $32-$68 for ages 12 and under, $36-$72 for military, seniors and students. 1-800-745-3000, www.cirquedusoleil.com/dralion.
