Banana Shpeel, a New York-bound stab at vaudeville, was massacred in reviews of its Chicago tryout last month.Jean-Francois Gratton photograph
Will 2010 shape up to be the world's most famous circus's annus horribilis ?
Last year, Cirque du Soleil's founder, Guy Laliberté, was flying high - literally - making headlines around the world for his trip into space. But as the calendar flips over, the stilt-walking entertainment executive is coming back down to earth, and hard.
His Montreal-based company has two big new shows in preview performances right now - and both have been marked by production setbacks and bad buzz.
Banana Shpeel , an ambitious New York-bound attempt to reinvent vaudeville for the 21st century, was massacred in the reviews of its out-of-town tryout in Chicago last month. This week, its upcoming reopening at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan was pushed back three weeks, to Feb. 24.
Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, Viva Elvis , a new musical "abstract biography" of the king of rock 'n' roll, began preview performances just before Christmas. But its official opening, originally planned for what would have been Elvis's 75th birthday on Jan. 8, was recently delayed (for a second time) to Feb. 19. Advance word on Viva Elvis is not particularly positive - even from those directly involved with it. "The show is not complete, and it's not what we wish," creative executive Gilles Ste-Croix told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last month as Cirque began to sell tickets.
The Globe and Mail began requesting interviews with Cirque du Soleil creatives and executives on the subject of Banana Shpeel and Viva Elvis in October, but has yet to be granted one.
The executive team had sounded cheery last summer as the company celebrated its 25th anniversary and Laliberté trained in Russia for his trip to the International Space Station. In August, president and CEO Daniel Lamarre said he was particularly excited about Cirque's then-unnamed vaudeville experiment, which he hoped might be the beginning of a whole new stream of live entertainment - one that Cirque could easily tour to traditional proscenium theatres, thus bypassing the need to lug along its own big top.
"Vaudeville doesn't exist any more, but, as you know, it was huge," Lamarre said of the eclectic variety shows that were once the most popular form of entertainment in North American - before film, the Great Depression and television killed them off. "This format has giant potential if a creative team can bring it to today's world."
The creatives eventually lined up to do just that for Banana Shpeel - a co-production with Madison Square Garden Entertainment. Celebrated American clown David Shiner was hired as director and writer. Best known for Fool Moon , a much-loved, wordless two-hander that had three Broadway runs, he seemed like the right man to lead Cirque to set up a permanent shop around the Great White Way. Rialto actors Annaleigh Ashford and Michael Longoria were enlisted to star, while composer Laurence O'Keefe ( Legally Blonde , Bat Boy ) was brought on board to write the songs.
A couple of weeks before Banana Shpeel saw its first audience in Chicago, however, it become clear that Cirque's attempt to compete with Broadway-style entertainment was not going according to plan.
First, Ashford and Longoria were fired, and their parts eliminated. That happened even though the two triple threats had already been featured front and centre in a "sneak peek" of the show that aired on the season finale of America's Got Talent .
O'Keefe was soon gone, too, and his score excised from the show, which was said to be headed back to vaudeville basics. When Chicago critics were finally invited to Banana Shpeel in December, they seemed to be competing in their condemnations of the clown-filled show. The script was "limp, lame and tired" wrote the Chicago Sun-Times, while the Chicago Tribune called the whole thing "cold, chaotic, clipped and cacophonous." Echoing a character in the show, Variety asked of Cirque: "What happened to the magic?"
Banana Shpeel 's remaining creative team is now scrambling to rework the show for its Feb. 24 New York premiere.
On Jan. 3, Viva Elvis is also shutting down for a couple of weeks of intensive rehearsals and retooling by director Vince Paterson (a choreographer known for his work with Michael Jackson and Madonna). That show, too, has been a departure for Cirque, with narration and "acting moments," rather than just feats of acrobatics, to tell the story of Presley's life.
There's a little more than usual riding on the Viva Elvis show for Cirque, because, after a string of critical and financial successes, the company has begun to lose momentum in Las Vegas. The recession has been hard on Sin City. The new $8.5-billion (U.S.) CityCenter complex - home to Viva Elvis - teetered on the brink of bankruptcy during construction, while at least two other casino projects have been abandoned mid-construction. Tourism levels are down, and the remaining visitors to the city are spending less cash on gambling and entertainment.
Over the past year, Cirque's six shows on the Strip have seen attendance shrink from about 90 per cent capacity to 80 per cent. Box-office profits are not public information, but discount ticket offers have proliferated.
It doesn't help that the company's last extravaganza there was its first major critical flop. A magic show starring Criss Angel, Believe , which opened in October, 2008, is still undergoing revisions, and fills only about 75 per cent of its seats (with cut-rate tickets readily available). Like Banana Shpeel and Viva Elvis , Believe was an attempt by Cirque to step away from straight circus.
So, given the shaky economic times, why has Cirque decided to try something new, instead of sticking with the tried and true?
In the absence of immediate answers from Cirque, I turned to Mike Weatherford, a long-time Las Vegas observer who has followed the company's fortunes for the Review-Journal.
He suggests that Cirque needs to conquer new areas of entertainment if it wants to continue to grow without cannibalizing it own audience. As well, he adds, the company's new projects need to move away from Cirque's colourful, gibberish-filled comfort zone. " Viva Elvis , much more than the Beatles's Love , will have to show that they can Americanize their production and aesthetic," says Weatherford. "An Elvis show can't look French-Canadian."
Will Cirque du Soleil be able to turn around Banana Shpeel and Viva Elvis in the next two months, before their official openings finally take place? Laliberté's team does have a long and storied history of saving the day, so don't call either show a flop just yet.
Then again, Cirque du Soleil has never had to fight such a two-front war before. And in an era when bloggers and social-networking sites such as Twitter don't wait for official opening nights to pass judgment, the early negative perceptions could have long-lasting effects. The cliché has never been truer: You don't get a second chance to make a first impression.