This is going to be a refreshing change from my usually long-winded reviews.Here are my thoughts on Cirque Du Soleil's La Nouba show in Downtown Disney: wow.
(Ok, I suppose I'll write a little bit more considering what they're paying me — ok, no one's paying me, but I'll talk about it a bit more since the guys on "American Idol" are hitting a bit of a rough patch.)
I caught a performance of La Nouba on Valentine's Day night with my girl Erica and it was simply the most spectacular live show I've ever seen. I'm not going to pretend like I've been to 100 concerts or anything, but I've seen my share of shows on stage, and this was the most impressive.
As you can probably tell from my enthusiasm, it was the first Cirque Du Soleil show for me, and I was fortunate enough to score front row seats (again — seriously, what am I going to do when I have to review a show from not the front row, like a peasant).
Since I'm fairly honest and not very smart (and fairly honest about not being very smart), I'm going to admit that I could not follow the storyline for about 82% of the time. I've heard that some Cirque shows are easy to follow, while some are completely incomprehensible. I'd say this one falls somewhere in between. According to my sources, "La Nouba" originates from the French phrase "faire la nouba" which means "to party" or "to live it up".
I also understood that the show we were witnessing was supposed to be some sort of waking dream of the cleaning lady character. There were also two funny clowns providing occasional comic relief — who didn't appear to have anything to do with anything — and were there mostly to take up time while the performers changed costumes.
Fortunately, none of that matters because the La Nouba acrobats, dancers, contortionists, trapeze artists, and the rest of the cast put on the most amazing display of physicality I've ever seen. Since we were so close, we were also able to note, as Erica pointed out, that all the performers had approximately 0% body fat. I agreed, except in the case of the wrestler character called Le Titan — who appeared to have negative body fat.
I don't want to take away any of the thrills or surprise or wonder for anyone who hasn't seen it by describing any of the feats in the show. All I'll say is that La Nouba uses creative staging and lighting, as well as fantastic and memorable music to enhance and update traditional circus tricks and elevate them into art (geez, how cheesy do I sound right now? I don't care, it's true).
All that, plus the fact that, after Erica handed a rose she'd received from Wolfgang Puck's to a performer during the curtain call, we were approached by a guy who was looking at us funny while we were sitting in our car ready to drive off. Having no idea who this guy was, I was a little creeped out when he came to my window, but when I opened the door (if this scenario had been a horror movie, I wouldn't be typing this blog) I noticed he was holding a rose and it turned out to be performer Carlos Marcio Moreira (sans makeup), who played The Walker.
So for the second straight time, we sat in the front row of a live show and got to meet a cast member. Good times, great show, and an unforgettable Valentine's Day.
Cirque Du Soleil La Nouba...A+
(Sorry I lied about this being a short review — it totally got away from me.)
2 comments:
I will agree that this was an awesome show. I was so mesmerized that it had to be the fastest 100 minutes or so of my life. I told my wife I wanted to get tickets for the 2nd show and watch again. But being the thrifty woman she is, she said no. Equal to the visual show was the music. It was so perfect that I didn't realize that it was live (not canned music) and being performed by actual musicians and singers in real time. Which is exactly what 'live' means, I guess.
There isn't any way I could recommend this show more.
It's a great point about the music. It was absolutely outstanding and, like you, I didn't realize it was being played live until well into the show.
It was so good I seriously considered buying the soundtrack in the gift shop afterwards. But then again, when am I going to listen to that awesome, epic-sounding music? Between trips to the gas station? In my car on the way to the grocery store? (Actually, I take it back that WOULD be fantastic!)
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