Cirque notes...

[jbsegal]

So it's been a week+ since I last wrote much about Cirque.

Let's see...

I've seen the show many more times.
I've seen two significant variations of the show that did bad things to the story. (more below)
I've cleaned up about 500# of popcorn and 50 Gal of leftover soda, wine, beer and water.
I've gone to bar-like things 2 times in 8 days.

And most notably, I've decided to follow the show down to DC.

I'd been mulling the idea over for a week or so before - after a party at Coyote Ugly last Sunday (9 days ago) - I found out that only 3 of the followers who'd been with the show before DC were continuing on to DC... I started to feel almost (almost) obliged to take advantage of my available time.

After taking it over with kimberlogic, tcb and dancingdeer, I finally decided to do it.

What I know so far is that the obligation is to:
A) Show up for the Dress Rehersal on 9/15
B) Work 9/16-9/19 (Thu-Sun) - helping get the new people up to speed as fast as possible.
and
C) The show is 9/16-10/24.

Anything more I need to know will be covered at a meeting on Weds.

I've arranged some crash space with aquariumgirl and john_5, some with hammercock's folks, and may well need some more beyond that.

Hell, being metro-DC (The show's at RFK), if anyone happens to have a car they'd like to lend me for 5 weeks, I'd happily accept. :)

(I already know that, should a (real) job come my way, I'm going to be bailing out on them...)

= = =

As for the changes to the show:

At one show, Irina (hand-balancing on canes; contortion - also the female love-interest/lead in the story), didn't do her act and the Aerial Hoop act was inserted. The problem is that this leaves the kidnapping/metamorphosis/love story unresolved... she (Irina) just came back on stage with (Anton) Icarus, watched the act, and then there was love/marriage/resolution.

The better solution: Take the hoop performer, put her in Irina's transformation costume, do the hoop act and have her as his love for the resolution.

The other major change was substituting Hoop for Triple Trapeze. Icarus and the green lizard are in what I call "Satellite Of Love" and they have the equipment failure. The blue-green ladies come on for the abduction but just drive Icarus and the Lizard apart, into seperate stage-holes. This, of course, blows the abduction part of the story line, making the metamorphosis/re-emergence very unclear, as that comes from the sky.

In this case, I'd have put the hoop performer in blue-green, and at the end of the act have them abduct the Irina Lizard up to the sky.

But they don't ask me these sorts of questions. I'm considering writing this up more completely and sending it to Montreal. We'll see.
- - -
Beyond that... let's see... A couple of co-workers - a (relatively young) couple from Ireland over here for 4 months, but are homeless between 9/1 and 9/5. In keeping with the grand LSE tradition of taking in Waifs and Strays, it seemed the thing to do.

As they're geeks, I'll be trying to get them to show up at Worldcon at night. :) (They're working all of Wed-Sun, while I'm taking Fri and Sat off...)

And with that, it's time for bed. :)
(After noting that KLuJe A) Enabled me to turn off the menu with no way to turn it back on and B) There's not a 'submit' button anyplace not in the menus. I don't know if there's one in them or not.))

Comments

[rigel.livejournal.com]

One other note . . . the guy playing the male lead, while fantastic, has this unfortunate tendency to briefly talk to other cast members when he thinks the audience can't see him. The people on the sides can. And his facial expression notably changes, making it obvious he's dropped character.

He ends up giving the impression that he thinks he's the coolest thing since sliced bread and, at best, loses character for moments of the show.

On the other hand, he's really hot in costume. I was so disappointed when I saw him without his wig at the end and realized how short his hair was.

crash space

[dragonsea]

You're welcome to stay with me for a few days. I live 5 blocks from Wheaton Metro, so you can Metro to Stadium/Armory.

Hammercock has my contact info. or send me an email to my LJ account.

Q and I would love to see you

[make-your-move.livejournal.com]

while you're down here :) Tell me if you want our contact info and where you'd want it sent :)

there's a plot?

[cthulhia]

I mean, more than some loose vague thing trying to tie all the acts together?
it just seemed like an acrobat from the beginning who'd been running around a lot ending up "marrying" the acrobat from the previous act to be a color contrast from the fire-colored acrobats.

or, more to the point, plot is low-priority for the viewer.

(which is why ballets will hand you a program, because it matters to them that you know there's an overarching plot. since there's less costuming and singing and special effects to deal with the MTV-attention span, at a ballet you need the story or you'll get bored too quickly.)

[bookly.livejournal.com]

And most notably, I've decided to follow the show down to DC.

Yay! That's really cool. :)

[tb]

Is there a pointer to the story line somewhere, including how the various acts fit in? I had trouble deducing it from watching. Or is that what's included in the program guides, which I'm too cheap to buy?

Watching the show without knowing the story worked pretty well for me, though until you mentioned it here I hadn't realized that Irina was also the green lizard (and I was wondering what had happened to her). From my perspective Irina was totally hot, BTW, as were the twins on the ropes.

Re: Q and I would love to see you

[kimberlogic.livejournal.com]

speaking for myself, YES ... send to kmb@lse.org ... i'll be down with him for a bit of it :)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

It doesn't look like there's any official explanation (aside from whatever might be in the program that I was also too cheap to buy), but some available reviews give a bit of a plot outline.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

As well, the big expensive Photo Book (hardcover)(as opposed to the small, sort of expensive softcover program), has bunches of stuff.

Me, I mostly picked it up the 1st time I saw it, and have refined my understanding since... and I disagree with some of their intentions. The blue-green (triple trapeze) women are described in the big book as 'goddesses'... and I'd more go for (air? tree? something else?) 'spirits'.

[cutieperson]

the story can sort of be pieced together on the Cirque site, starting with the intro and reading through the acts and characters.

it's not perfect, but it's better than spending $12 on a program :)