REVIEW : Soviets Twirl and Leap Into San Diego : Acrobatics: Troupe provides a buffet of routines for audiences at the Old Globe Theatre.

They twirl, they leap, they balance, they dance.

They are the Soviet Acrobatic Revue at the Old Globe Theatre, and if the American premiere of this Soviet import proves anything, it is that a circus in any country is still a circus.

Thus said, this one-ring troupe provides a dandy little divertissement, with talented performers who are eager to please. It is not the ultimate circus and certainly not the ultimate acrobatic revue, despite the considerable charm and skill of its performers--four of which are family acts. And it does not help to have the very practiced and justly acclaimed “Le Cirque du Soleil” performing simultaneously on the other side of Balboa Park.

The Soviet Acrobatic Revue, a last-minute replacement for the Peking Acrobats whose visas were held up by the Chinese government in the wake of the summer uprising in Beijing, was assembled by promoter Don Hughes as a collage of top Soviet dance, acrobatic and comic acts.

What the troupe provides, consequently, is a sampler of many styles of performance--a buffet of some sparkling individual numbers that never quite find the common harmony that would blend the parts into a whole.

The brevity of the 21 acts (at about six minutes each)--beautifully costumed in great bursts of color--worked best with the children in the audience who moved easily from the oohing and aahing over Shamhal and Muhtar Abakarov, the Daghestan father and son tightrope walkers (imagine walking blindfolded and in a black sack across the high wire) to the giggles elicited by the clown, Sergei Alexandrevich Pavlov, who seems to have no problem tap dancing, juggling and making faces while he plays “Blue Moon” on the trumpet.

Still there is something for the unjaded of any age here: Charlie Chaplin and the little flower girl gliding gracefully on roller ice skates (Alexander Rozanov and Liliya Mandrychenko); a birdlike contortionist (Rusanna Vardanyan), complete with white wings, transforming her body atop a bird cage; a beautifully fluid acrobat (Inga Dianova) doing her twists, turns and loops inside a steel ring balanced on husband Ahmed Dianov’s forehead.

And a Cossack who does his flips with spears (Mikhail Sklyadnev); the brick juggling by the remarkably cheerful Anvar Dianov who performs as if it is a rare kick rather than a challenge to balance 15 bricks while putting on his jacket; the athletic dancing of a five-member company that includes the show’s artistic director, Uriy Zamyatnin, and athletics so smooth, it looked like dancing from Ivan Pristupa, wife Ludmila Pristupa and Uriy Sugrobov.

Another quality the Soviets have in common with their grease-painted brethren everywhere is the trick of making tricks look easy. There were intimations of how difficult some of these numbers are when Vladimir Serov, riding a unicycle on a slack wire, almost dropped the fifth cup he was balancing on the fifth saucer on his head. Blame opening night jitters if you will, but not Serov, who distinguished himself later with balancing upside down on a teapot on a sideways unicycle that he pedaled with his hands across the slack wire. (Serov’s partner, wife Iraida Serova, also handled five hula hoops on a unicycle with evident ease.)

The show ended with the Soviet and United States flags side by side, a trick that got the biggest applause of all from the opening-night audience--another difference between the Soviet Acrobatic Revue and Le Cirque, which does not wave a Canadian or American flag at the end of its show. The way to tell when glasnost is really here is when such self-conscious demonstrations of friendship seem unnecessarily quaint.

“THE SOVIET ACROBATIC REVUE”

Artistic director is Uriy Zamyatnin. Costumes by Papzyan of Germes, Moscow. Stage manager is John Highkin. At 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 7 p.m. Sundays with Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 through Dec. 17. Tickets are $20-27.50 with discounts for seniors, military and students under 25. At the Old Globe Theatre, Balboa Park, San Diego, (619) 239-2255.