Cirque du Soleil’s Immortal World Tour just might be the greatest show that Michael Jackson never gave.
It’s easy to imagine that he would’ve loved it, that he could’ve come up with some of this crazy stuff that celebrates his career so elaborately, that he might even appear in the show at almost anytime, but ... then you remember.
Drawing 10,000 fans for the first of two shows at Rexall Place on Tuesday night, this show is spectacular, outrageous, ridiculous and inspiring all at once.
It’s huge blast of weird — from the one-legged break-dancer to the people dancing on the walls to a giant glove doing the moondance to the giant boots doing the moondance to the squad of bat creatures in the graveyard to the giant floating wire animals to the flying dancing couples to the battalion of dancing metal golems. In short, Michael Jackson would’ve felt right at home.
This may be Cirque’s best, most focused production yet, featuring the same crew of awe-inspiring performers deploying all the tricks for which the French-Canadian circus is famous, plus a few new ones, set to the soundtrack of some of the biggest songs in popular music by one of its most famous stars. Can’t really go wrong here.
Many liberties are taken with both the musical arrangements and the life story, many of Jackson’s most well-known songs torqued into surreal tableaus of all descriptions. But it’s all there: The robbed childhood, the Jackson Five, the dance innovations complete with the classic crotch-grab, the mysterious keeper of Neverland, even Bubbles the Chimp makes an appearance, and of course a big song and dance number for Thriller, which is quite possibly the zenith of Jackson’s entire life, and this show.
Including a variety of moods from Bad to Ben to They Don’t Care About Us (the use of the word “Jew” as a verb has been stricken), everything is larger than life. It’s not enough to have 10 twirling trapeze artists. Here we have 10 twirling trapeze artists dressed in lighted suits, hoisted high in the air in complete darkness. The effect is mesmerizing.
Production is formidable. Producers spent $60 million on this thing, and it’s all up there on stage. An enormous HD video screen that folds down to form part of the stage is just one piece of expensive eye candy. But at no time did the production overwhelm the human element. OK, maybe a couple times. But it all worked in concert.
One of the most admirable things about this is how well the performers copped Jackson’s distinctive dance moves. At times it seemed like there were 10 Michael Jacksons on stage.
Like all Cirque shows, the clowns and mimes bookend the dancers and acrobats. There’s a story of sorts holding it all together: There are five “kids” that look like Fat Albert’s gang who’ll do anything to get into the gates of Neverland, including impersonating the Jackson Five, which does the trick.
There’s a mime in a sparkly suit, meanwhile, who apparently wants to BE Michael Jackson, and in the end he gets his wish. That’s about it. Cue the dancers! Bring on the guys wielding the giant triangular video screens! Deploy the old school funk! Launch the fireworks! The music is definitely some of the best ever heard in a Cirque show, which, let’s face it, isn’t saying much, but it sure had a lot of groove.
Jackson was a constant presence here, in either disembodied voice or voiceless image.
The writers were obviously deeply inspired by their subject matter, seeing fit several times to insert some of Jackson’s famous platitudes into the show: Sayings like “In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream,” and so on. And if there was a dry eye in the house at the end of Heal the World, I didn’t see it.
The show repeats Wednesday.
****
Immortal World Tour
10,000 in Rexall
Weird, wild and wonderful – just like Michael Jackson
5 out of 5
