Despite Cirque du Soleil's international acclaim, Saltimbanco, their oldest touring production, came into Buffalo this past weekend bringing with it a wave of disappointment.
Beginning their limited engagement on Wednesday at the HSBC Arena, Saltimbanco attempts to recreate the vivaciousness of urban life by projecting its energy and music from the streets onto the stage.
Drawing from an Italian term "Salter in Banco," translated as "to jump on a bench," the show does just that. With actors popping out from every corner, interacting with the audience throughout the performance, one feels as if they just stepped into the crazy world of a Dr. Seuss book.
With eccentrically vibrant costumes and a hallucinogenic set design, the show starts off as if the audience is falling into a trance, slowly allowing itself to be overcome by the anticipation of some exciting lucid dream.
However, within the first half hour it becomes clear that the show lacks serious enthusiasm. With the arena being two-thirds empty, it is frustrating to imagine how different the intensity of the actors' gusto would have been if they were performing to a sold-out audience.
There are over 17 different Cirque du Soleil shows being performed across the globe. Considering that their most famous shows, such as The Beatles LOVE and O, are a few of the highest grossing shows on the Vegas strip, it makes one wonder how much more money was spent on these Sin City shows when compared to Saltimbanco.
The momentum of the overall show clearly exhibits that not enough attention is being paid to their touring performances.
With ticket prices ranging from $95 for premium seating to $55 dollars for those who were fortunate enough to discover HSBC student discounts, there was a slight sense of bitterness over money not well spent as patrons poured out of the arena at the end of the night.
Saltimbanco is composed of nine different dynamic acts spanning over its two-and-a-half-hour engagement. With the acts ranging from the boringly unimpressive to the mind-blowingly insane, there was no continuity throughout any of the performances. The only binding factor of the entire show was the color scheme of the set design, connecting the actors with the stage.
With a slow start to the show, the night's best performances came after the intermission, finally bringing those gravity defying performances that everyone came to see. The first of the aerial pieces was a duo-trapeze act performed by two women soaring seamlessly through the sky, sharing only one swing.
Balancing with each other to keep themselves from falling, these women gave a whole new meaning to the term "holding on for dear life."
The second aerial act used four actors attached to bungee cords, successfully showcasing the harmony and difficulty of becoming one grand illusion.
However, the most impressive performance came from a male-duo balancing act. Standing on a platform no bigger than a soapbox, their act exhibited how unbelievable the human body really is.
Everyone's jaw dropped during their finale as one of the male performers balanced horizontally off the other one's head, using only one hand.
The act was completed when the male on the bottom rose to stand with his partner still on his head.
While the actors did everything in their power to keep the energy alive, even bringing audience members to partake in a few of the acts, the overall feeling was, 'That's it?'
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
