"Zarkana" Cirque Du Soleil

“ZARKANA,” the latest venue of Cirque Du Soleil, is exclusively at Radio City Music Hall New York. Touted as “an acrobatic rock opera,” ZARKANA bubbles over with spectacular acrobatic feats, stunning costumes, and fantastical set designs. Devout followers of the Cirque may find the acts familiar, but that does not diminish the awe, wonder, beauty, and excitement of this elaborate mesmerizing spectacle.

Radio City Music Hall is the largest indoor theater in the world with the Grand Stage, resembling a setting sun, measuring 144’ wide by 66.5’ deep. A challenging piece of real estate to fill yet ZARKANA meets the challenge and devours every inch of the stage transforming it into a fantastical multifaceted surreal world.

The moment the voluminous curtain rises, we are sucked into the magical, bizarre, and eerie world of ZARKANA. Three elaborate arches layer the stage creating a funnel effect. Each arch is resplendently hand sculpted with the largest of the arches displaying 150 feet of snakes. The back wall of the stage is a 90’ wide by 40’ high LED composed of 118 custom-built panels. The LED wall is a constant flood of ever changing dimensional imagery from floating eyeballs to writhing snakes, setting the stage into continuous dream-scape optical illusions.

ZARKANA revolves around a magician, Zark, who sets out on a quest to find his lost powers and his lost love. Zark’s quest leads him into a creepy abandoned theater where the walls breathe, move, and sing. Upon entering, he immediately confronts an array of magical creatures. The most noteworthy include the four sirens: the Lady of Vines, the Lady of Snakes, the Lady of Spiders, and the Pickled Lady. The costumes and staging of each siren are dazzling, especially the Lady of Snakes who ascends high above the stage with her writhing snake tail still touching the floor. Two clowns, Hocus and Pocus, appear throughout the show in an effort to provide comic relief from this often dark and eerie tale. Some scenes are a bit ghoulish and disjointed such as the “mutant baby with six arms” bubble. Set designs and special effects are imaginative and visually stimulating creating a mind-blowing “acid trip” ambiance. Oddly enough, the only sanity on the stage are the acrobats. Indisputably mesmerizing, ZARKANA is the sweetest of eye candy.

Between these scenes is the stuff that makes Cirque Du Soleil so famous:

The extraordinary precision, concentration, and discipline of acrobats, aerialists, jugglers, and high-wire acts performing non-stop death-defying feats of skill. Two agile performers, meticulously navigate the double “Wheel of Death.”

However, it was heart stopping when the one performer lost his footing while preparing to jump rope on the ever turning wheel. Undaunted, but obviously irritated with himself, he quickly regained his rhythm and accomplished the feat. The incident was only seconds, but it was an enlightening insight into the focus and mental strength these exceptional athletes possess.

In true Cirque form, ZARKANA is primed with a succession of spectacular acts involving high wires, trapezes, and acrobats. Three balance artists teeter atop ladders, signature rope swinging, gravity defying acrobats landing on a Russian bar, cyr wheels, aerial hoops, flags and more. All are action packed spellbinding feats. In the second act, a sand artist gives a sedate but still spellbinding performance. The performer uses sand, a piece of glass, and a video camera to “draw” a series of alluring pictures of men and women paying tribute to the universe’s mysteriousness.

The show ends with fifteen acrobats tumbling on the stage floor, and the final feat is the most impressive: A young woman cannonballs up onto the shoulders of a man who is standing on the shoulders of another man, who is standing on the shoulders of yet another man.

ZARKANA celebrates everything that is Cirque Du Soleil except the music . An original score, it is monotonous and over-amplified distorting the lyrics into an unintelligible cacophony of noises. The pseudo-heavy-metal-electronic music is over bearing and deafening in the cavernous hall. We had decided to see the show in a somewhat “spur-of-the-moment” moment, knowing nothing about ZARKANA other than it was Cirque Du Soleil. But, when the curtain went down for intermission, we found ourselves busily searching our program guides for explanations! Unfortunately, and most frustrating, we found nothing. Clueless about the plot (like what’s up with the mutant baby bubble?) and unable to decipher any dialog what-so-ever, we entered the second act still mesmerized and completely entertained.

The talented performers that comprise the Cirque Du Soleil are unsurpassed. These young men and women are awe-inspiring athletes demonstrating the magnificent capabilities of the human body and mind. Their individual determination to defy gravity and perfect their death-defying skills is mind-blowing in itself. Original music, elaborate costumes, and fantastical scenery make for delicious icing but on an already out-of-this-world cake!

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ZARKANA

June 29 - October 28, 2011

Tickets:$50 - $300

http://www.radiocity.com

Radio City Music Hall

1260 Sixth Avenue (aka Avenue of the Americas)
New York City 10020
212-247-4777

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