The Cirque Comes to Town
Cirque de Soleil is holding court at Staples Center for a limited run, and LAist had a chance Thursday night to catch a sneak preview its latest music-dance-acrobatic-video show “Delirium.”
According to the Cirque du Soleil website:
DELIRIUM is the quest for balance in a world that is increasingly out of sync with reality. It pushes the limit of arena performance through technical magnitude, human introspection and creative prowess.
Basically, the self-billed "live music concert" follows the adventures of a flier named Bill who’s dangling from a hot-air balloon for most of the performance. As in most Cirque shows, the acrobats were amazing and the visuals over-stimulated the senses. But this circus definitely isn’t for everyone.
The show’s urban/tribal music would've been good as instrumentals -- but Cirque du Soleil added lyrics to a production for the first time in its history. And it didn’t work for us. Many of the songs sounded like the bombastic repertoire of Celine Dion. We could’ve sworn we heard strains of “My Heart Will Go On” in the denouement of one tune.
So our advice to Cirque creators: Bring on more hula hoopers and leave Celine at Caesar's.
**The B-listers were also out in full force for the “Delirium” sneak preview Thursday: LAist spotted Gary Cole, James van der Beek, Marisa Tomei with Lisa Bonet, Jason Lewis and Rosario Dawson, Andrew Keegan (wearing a woman’s black headband, why?), Dave Foley, Esai Morales and – yes, he’s still around – Kato Kaelin.
The Bombay-sponsored bar set up for these VIPs and hipsters showed how LA is a town of alcoholics. The four bartenders had their hands full with the crowd of at least 50 deep in each line. (The waiting time was approximately 20 minutes to reach the front of the bar with a two drink limit.) At one point the bar crowd grew so large that the bar had to be moved back, which created a near stampede for the front of the line.
We love these press junkets!
Delirium runs Sept. 27 to 29 at 8 p.m. at Staples Center.
Photo from Cirque du Soleil