Presto! Just like magic, the festival organizers come up with the perfect solution — Johann Le Guillerm’s Cirque Ici playing under a big-top in the lowlands at Kolomenskoye Park. And that isn’t all. So as not to interfere with your hike in the wilderness, your stroll on the river promenade, or your picnic at one of the rustic eateries, they scheduled the shows to begin at 9 p.m. So enjoy the summer weather, enjoy one of Moscow’s most beautiful parks, and then take your seat in the circus tent for “Secret,” one of the most unusual shows you will probably ever see.
Cirque Ici is something of a personal declaration by Le Guillerm; as if he were saying, “the circus is wherever I am.” Le Guillerm’s persona is almost indescribably strange. At times he looks something like a cross between a dungeon executioner, Merlin the magician and a komodo dragon, as he hisses and sticks his tongue out at the heavens to conjure up the goodwill of the gods. Quasimodo-like in his movements, and dressed and coiffed like an escapee from a “Mad Max” movie, he also gives off an air of gentleness and vulnerability. At least, he does in those moments when he isn’t staring down the audience with a threatening glare.
Le Guillerm, who never says a word, performs an array of unorthodox acts and tricks. He begins with several spoofs of an animal tamer, as he battles various odd objects. These include four buckets that he “trains” to roll around the floor in tight formation, a metal bar that he bends into submission and forces to do tricks for him, and a huge contraption on wheels that he makes roll off stage by waving a fan at it.
Contraptions are Le Guillerm’s passion. He evidently is every bit as much an engineer as a circus performer, because he has devised some of the most bizarre constructions imaginable.
One such gadget is a bucking bronco made up of a huge spray of steel rods. Looking rather like a steel broom topped by a saddle, it is surprisingly lifelike. Or at least it is as long as Le Guillerm rides it around the small arena like a man hell bent for leather. Also designed to amaze are more contrivances on wheels, one of which rides off under its own power, driven by sand pouring through a hole in a pot, and another that delivers books to center stage that Le Guillerm then stacks into a pair of leaning towers before climbing up on them to do balancing acts.
But it is the finale that must be seen to be believed. Here Le Guillerm begins with a couple of simple planks that he “weaves” into a free-standing construction strong enough to hold him as he climbs up on it. But the real magic happens when he begins tying the planks together to create a spiral stairway toward heaven — or at least high enough that Le Guillerm can stand on the last plank and nearly reach the ceiling of the big-top.
I have no fear of giving anything away with this vague description, since no description could possibly do justice to what the performer actually does.
Le Guillerm is accompanied by five helpers who efficiently deliver props, act as DJs providing the show’s futuristic soundscape, and occasionally stand on guard in the event the actor topples off one of his toys. All of them keep a low profile, working mostly in the dark, adding to the mysterious air of alchemical conjuring that Le Guillerm takes pains to create.
One word of caution: The show I attended did not actually begin until 9:30, which meant it did not end until 11:10 p.m. That is still plenty of time to get to the metro, approximately a 15-minute walk from the circus tent down by the area where the Moscow riverboats are docked. So it does make for a relatively late evening.
But what an evening it is!
“Secret,” a production of Cirque Ici, plays at Kolomenskoye Park Fri. through July 27 (except Mon., Tues. and July 24) at 9 p.m. Metro Kolomenskoye. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes. The remaining productions of the Chekhov International Theater Festival continue at various venues around the city through Aug. 2. The complete schedule may be found in The Moscow Times events listings and at Chekhovfest.ru. Tel. 223-9650, 223-9651.
John Freedman will return on Wednesday next week for the year-end theater wrap-up.
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