True to its name, Cirque Boom presents
a version of Jacques Offenbach’s opera "Tales of Hoffmann"
that features many of the artists who make up family entertainment
– acrobats, puppeteers, a stilt-walker, a juggler and a clown.
But this eerie and jarring production is certainly not for children.
Directed by Ruth Juliet Wikler and staged in the cavernous, columned
basement tavern of the Water Street Restaurant & Lounge in
DUMBO, the "The Hoffmann Circus: A Circus Opera of the Tales
of Hoffmann" is composed of three tales of lost love, which
Hoffmann (David Gordon) tells his drinking buddies.
The tales are preceded by a prologue in which Nicklausse (Anna
Zastrow), Hoffmann’s clown sidekick, arrives and nervously awaits
him, teasing the audience with glimpses of her undergarments
and silent antics. Hoffman, at last, enters, ignores Nicklausse
and starts relating his tales.
In one tale, he falls in love with a woman, Olympia (Jeannie
Im), who turns out to be a singing doll made by a mad scientist.
In another, the object of his desire is Antonia (Amy Cheifetz),
whose eccentric father forbids the romance. In the third, he
is seduced by the courtesan Giulietta (Olivia Lehrman), who ends
up stealing his reflection.
In the epilogue, which for some reason Cirque Boom calls a prologue,
Hoffmann, weak and weary, sees his life fade before him and throws
himself into the arms of Nicklausse, the forlorn and timid clown
who has been sexually liberated by Giulietta. But no one, least
of all Hoffman, really believes this love will last any longer
than the others.
If Cirque Boom had stuck to the opera and left out all the silly
frills, they would have had a fine production on their hands.
Gordon, Cheifetz, Im, Jensen and Mark Womack, as the bartender,
all have powerful and stirring voices. It was a great pleasure
listening to them. They also have a wonderful dramatic sense
and an impressive stage presence.
Unfortunately, too often this production abandons the singing
in favor of bizarre, comic or merely extraneous actions that
distract the audience from the real purpose of an opera – music.
And if truth be told, none of the circus artists exhibited a
talent to write home about: the stilt-walker actually fell, the
aerial artists were sort of boring, the clown wasn’t too funny
and we’ve all seen better juggling at South Street Seaport or
a children’s party.
One gets the feeling that what this production really needs is
someone at the helm. This is a collaborative effort with no one
in charge, no one to limit excess and no one to say "no."
Wikler, who is also the founder and artistic director of Cirque
Boom, trained at the Circomedia School of Circus and Physical
Theatre in Bristol, England and at the Instalaccion aerial improvisation
center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. These are impressive credentials
perhaps. But what do they have to do with opera or Offenbach?
This is not to say that opera and circus cannot be integrated.
But the circus performances in "The Hoffmann Circus"
seem to have no other purpose than to contribute to an atmosphere
of perversity and doom. One would think any production deserves
more thought than that.
In the end, this production is indeed a circus, a three-ring
circus in which no one knows where to look first or why.
Cirque Boom’s production of "The
Hoffman Circus: A Circus-Opera of The Tales of Hoffmann"
plays through May 16, Thursday and Saturday at 8 pm, and Sunday
at 5 pm, at Water Street Restaurant & Lounge (66 Water St.
between Dock and Main streets in DUMBO). Tickets are $12 plus
a two-drink minimum, with an $18.95 pre-theater dinner special
available with ticket stub before the show on Thursdays and Saturdays
and after the show on Sundays. For tickets, call (212) 868-4444
or visit www.smarttix.com.
