Varekai (Cirque du Soleil) – Trafford Centre, Manchester

Director: Dominic Champagne

Composer and Musical Director: Violaine Corradi

Choreographer: Michael Montanaro and Bill Shannon

Reviewer: Sebastian Farrell

The Public Reviews Rating:

Attending your first circus is always going to be memorable, doing so at the age of 26 to arguably the world’s most successful circus company, to their production of Varekai, surrounded by soap stars and television celebrities will always make it just that little bit more special.

Varekai is still a relative newcomer within Cirque du Soleil’s ever increasing arsenal of touring productions but it still remains one of its most popular and enduring. The story is very loosely based upon the Greek myth Icarus and his fall from the air whilst flying to close to the sun, the difference in Varekai is that Icarus does not fall to his untimely death in the raging sea but instead to a lush forest full of super human creatures and beings who try to show and teach him how to fly again.

We start with Icarus himself getting used to life without his feathery new appendages by contorting and flying around inside what can only be described as a football net, following this, new and varying members of this strange new world take it in turn to show Icarus what they can do and in the process captivate and amaze audience members from young to old and particularly ‘new-to-the-circus 26 year olds’ like myself. We have contortionists, balancing acts, acrobatics, jugglers, clowns, and plenty of aerial performers all doing there bit to entertain us and help Icarus find his feet, or should that be wings, again.

Creatively this production was outstanding, the set design by Stéphane Roy was simple and effective, a vast space for the acts to perform in surrounded by twenty foot high bamboo plants and Robin Hood-esque ladders and platforms, which looked as if it were tied together with twine, made this other worldly forest utterly dreamlike and believable, each performer looked to materialize from within the woods themselves and all set changes flowed at a great pace.

Oscar winning costume designer Eiko Ishioka has obviously had a lot of fun with some of the costumes in Varekai, her designs had two girls behind me almost convulse with excitement, never have I known anyone get so excited about costumes before but it is easy to understand why when you see such vibrant colours and unique styles fitting in perfectly with the overall ‘feel’ of this production. The lighting and sound design by Nol van Genuchten and François Bergeron respectively also went to emphasise the production and I was particularly impressed that even when nothing was happening it still always felt and sounded like we were all sat in the middle of this dark mysterious forest.

It’s easy with a productions such as Varekai to focus on the performers and overlook the fantastic work done by the musicians and musical director and composer Violaine Corradi. Having never been to a circus before I assumed that should there be any music at all it would surely be recorded and a mere side line to all the ‘swinging and throwing’ going on ‘onstage’. How wrong I was, the music in Varekai is not only live but it is also the most haunting and beautiful music I have heard for some time, I can understand it is sometimes there simply to heighten what’s happening on stage and create atmosphere but there was real moments in the music which almost had me close my eyes, put my feet up and reach for the nearest kettle. The singing by Craig Jennings and Isabelle Corradi was breathtakingly beautiful and almost worth the admission fee alone.

The main attraction though is always going to be the performers, with a cast from every corner of the world in this production and although I felt there was perhaps too much aerial work I was quite proud of the fact that two of the best were in fact Andrew and Kevin Atherton, twins from Great Britain.

The most spectacular of all the acts for me was the Icarian Games in which human bodies become the objects that other humans foot juggle, possibly the most exhilarating and dangerous circus acts, it was performed here by maestros Javier, Pedro and Ramon Santos and Stiv and Roni Bello. The volcano leaper grand finale was also a sight to behold with men throwing themselves some forty feet off the ground and landing in various positions around the stage. No circus would be complete without clowns and Varekai’s clowns Mooky Cornish and Steven Bishop were hilarious, particularly in a scene involving an audience member, a gun and some very slippery shoes.

Having never been to a circus before my opinion on this one may be a little biased (after all you never forget your first time!) It was visually stunning and the music was haunting and beautiful, the effects were spectacular and the performers all worked hard and amazed the audience. Varekai did have some faults though, some of the acts appeared watered down compared to a number of the bigger performances and the ending to the first act was particularly disappointing, the narrative is very weak and the plot is thinner than most of the lycra costumes, but on the whole the brilliant mix of circus skills, comedy and effects help to make this a pleasurable and exciting production.

Varekai is a fantastic family friendly night out, although pricey it is easy to see why Cirque De Soleil is the most rewarded and successful of all cirque companies and I shall certainly be looking with eager anticipation to see when they next tour. it’s not very often you have the child in you shriek with joy and fear at the same time and I encourage anyone who feels they may be missing that to try out Varekai. You won’t be disappointed.