TENT REVIVAL : Cirque du Soleil Big Top Is Back in Costa Mesa, This Time With an Offering of ‘Saltimbanco’

There is a moment early in “Saltimbanco,” Cirque du Soleil’s latest show, which trumpets the fact that this shimmering, 2 3/4-hour extravaganza under a Big Top is neither pure circus, nor vaudeville, nor theater, but a different entertainment animal altogether.

That moment comes when an acrobat walks on stage carrying what looks like a domed, stained-glass cake plate, illuminated from the inside, its panels glowing the same blue and yellow as the stripes of the circus tent. As the music swells and the lid is dramatically raised, what does the audience see? A cake? A diamond necklace?

No. A chair.

There, revealed for the curious crowd, sits a tiny, shiny chair, pink and yellow and turquoise, looking like a whimsical, overstuffed confection concocted by Willy Wonka.

Twice now I have seen the show, and both times I was haunted by that wee chair with its psychedelic splotches. What is its meaning?

Perhaps Andrew Watson, Cirque du Soleil artistic director on this tour, could solve the mystery.

We spoke in mid-December in an office alcove in the circus rehearsal complex in Santa Monica, accompanied by the sounds of tumblers and dancers leaping, flipping, flopping, strutting and stretching on mats nearby in their pre-show warm-up. The mood of the troupe seemed upbeat. In one week, all the performers and technicians would be on holiday hiatus, 94 successful L.A. performances for 2,500 people a night under their belts.

After a nice, long vacation, the Montreal-based troupe of performers from 10 nations would gather again to continue the show’s California run in Costa Mesa, where they set box office records during their last appearance in 1991. That show was called “Nouvelle Experience.” The ‘92-’93 model, “Saltimbanco,” takes its name from an Italian word that loosely means “a jump on the bench,” or the art of street-performing.

“I think the ’87 show (Cirque du Soleil’s U.S debut, ‘Cirque Reinvente’) was less technical and more naive. Perhaps more in touch with everyday moments,” Watson says.

A later version of “Cirque Reinvente” was “a bit darker--a different show altogether,” according to Watson. Next came “Nouvelle Experience,” the Cirque’s extremely successful ‘90-’91 offering. And now “Saltimbanco.”

“This show is lighter, and really fancy and quite high-tech, and we sing in it and have a rock ‘n’ roll band,” he says. “Everybody has a preference, and that’s fine. I don’t think any one show is better than another.”

In his jeans, horn-rimmed glasses and baseball cap, Watson looks more like a young screenwriter than artistic director and all-around trouble-shooter for a circus--albeit a distinctive circus. The cast of 40 that Watson is responsible for ranges from goofy clowns in purple dreadlocks to a petite, high-wire artiste from China who does daring feats with her feet while dressed in a bubblegum-pink unitard, snail-shaped sequin bustier and futuristic tutu.

Asked what it’s like to steer an entertainment vehicle that has everything from a full-blown rock band to the Elastiques, nimble people who resemble a spandex-clad sextet of spiders as they dive smoothly through the air while tethered to bungee-cord-like white filaments hooked to their hip harnesses, Watson replies:

“My work is to maintain the excellence of the show and the excellence of performance. At the same time, my job is to evolve the show: the characters, the technical aspects, the acrobatic technique. It’s like baby-sitting the show and at the same time, helping it to grow up.”

Part of that evolution means that the Orange County version will feature a new vocalist, Chantal Girard, for some performances. She and Francine Poitras, the main singer, croon no English words--only hauntingly beautiful phonemic sequences in Swedish, German and other languages. The effect is an otherworldly cross between singing in tongues and the music of the Cocteau Twins, British alternative pop artists known for vocalizing in their own made-up syllables. The Costa Mesa show will also see the debut of a new act called the “vertical ropes,” which features a Soviet family trio performing graceful and dramatic acrobatic moves.

Development and transformation are highly valued by the Cirque’s directors and performers. Rather than imposing a single artistic vision on cast members and demanding they rigidly follow that script throughout months of the show’s run, Watson and director-conceptualizer Franco Dragone heartily welcome collaboration.

“People are encouraged to evolve. It makes it better for everybody. As we’re doing so many shows, that keeps it more interesting for the cast,” Watson says. “But all that has to be kept in context with the content of the show.

“Also, when someone is sick or injured, then it’s a different sort of change. You have to heal the show. If you take an act out, then you have to marry the two ends of the show that remain.”

Then came the question: What about that enchanting little chair? Watson’s free-flowing answers became more circumspect, and couched in their own aura of mystery.

“It’s a symbol, yes, but I really don’t think I want to talk about it,” he says. “Everybody who sees the show has his own vision. Each tableaux, each scene, has such a different feeling.

“I think people really have space to dream inside the show. And if I start explaining my opinion of what everything is. . . . “ He trails off, no doubt contemplating the horror of constricting potential Cirque-goers’ artistic vision before they’ve even gone to the show.

Suffice to say, Cirque du Soleil is impressionistic. It is a bit of music, a bit of clowning around. A bit of teamwork, a bit of solo panache. A bit of broken-bone-defying daredeviltry and a bit of comic relief. Throughout the show, audience members are given the emotional space to lay their own template of wishes and dreams upon the actions on stage.

Below, several performers give their own impressions about their role in the show’s entertainment equation.

As for that chair . . . well, I have my theories. And if you see the Cirque, you can formulate a few of your own.

It’s somewhat disorienting to see Rene Bazinet so still as he sips tea at a table in the Cirque’s canteen tent. As “Saltimbanco’s” emcee and ringmaster, the German-born performer is in perpetual motion, giving his pantomime and comedic talents free rein as he plays a few minor characters and three very different major roles.

There is the Baron--a strutting figure in candy-striped red-and-black tights, flowing cape and silver-swizzle-streaked bride-of-Frankenstein hair. Then there’s the Old Man, a hooded, hunched grandpa of doom who tries to be ominous but only succeeds in drawing laughs with his theatrical wheezing.

Bazinet’s piece de resistance, though, is Eddy, a bucktoothed little boy with an oversized cap, an exaggerated slouch that turns his spine into a question mark, and a huge pair of striped boxer shorts that he’s fond of yanking up to his armpits. He emphasizes this “boy’s” brattiness with one of the most expressive tongues seen on stage in a long time. He also employs a catalogue of whistling and various aural effects (amplified by a discreet headset microphone) which communicate as much as words ever could.

“Yeah, I’m a bruiteur -- that’s French for ‘sound maker,’ ” he says, making a quick, screechy whistle to demonstrate.

With his perfectly arched eyebrows and chiseled cheekbones, slender neck wrapped in a scarf and wavy, prematurely gray hair, Bazinet comes across more as the European aristocrat than the clown. He’s been rather soft-spoken and serious up to this point in a brief pre-show interview, but a question about the buckteeth brings a flash of mischief to his face.

“I have a spare pair right here in my wallet,” he says. “I bought them from a carnival shop.” No buckteeth are located, alas, but he does find some vampire fangs that he happily inserts into his mouth, stretching his lips into a most ridiculous Dracula grin.

Bazinet is hyper-thin, which serves his sassy, little-boy role very well. But that seeming gauntness masks a body that is as strong, flexible and toned as any dancer’s. One moment that highlights this versatile performer’s body control and deftness of movement comes as he pauses at the edge of the stage, debating whether to step up or not.

Bazinet points and flexes his foot in its black jazz shoe until it seems like the sniffing muzzle of a dog, now touching down gingerly here, now recoiling there, now spiraling slowly, looking for a place to safely plant itself. That foot has the arch and precision of a ballet pro.

In another hilarious pantomime portion that involves an imaginary overflowing toilet and a stuck bathroom door, Bazinet’s physical finesse makes the silly situation completely believable. That kind of motion, as effortless as it looks, is anything but.

“I’m standing on one leg for minutes, ‘swimming’ through air, puffing my cheeks out and trying to breathe at the same time--it’s very tiring,” he says. “I’m basically pooped after that.”

In each show, one audience member has the rare opportunity to cross the invisible barrier between the cast and crowd and join Bazinet onstage for some spontaneous pantomiming. It’s usually an amusing segment that allows the audience to root madly for one of its “own.” But does it ever backfire?

“Oh, yes,” Bazinet says, though he has generally found the people he’s pulled out of California audiences “more open and daring” than most.

“One guy in Quebec just didn’t want to do it, and he felt uncomfortable, and had to protect himself, and he wasn’t listening to me. He tried to pull one over on the clown, if you know what I mean,” Bazinet says.

He shrugs. “So sometimes I just let it die. It’s not funny anymore.”

He pauses, this man who has fished for laughs for years in Germany, France, Canada and now the United States, pondering the deeper rhythms of clowning.

“Certain things just speak for themselves,” he says. “There’s a high level of intelligence in the viewer. And you can de-mask yourself by not wanting to take off the mask.

“By not wanting to be an idiot, you turn out to be a very great idiot--by not just trusting in the situation and just going along with it and knowing that you’re all right anyway, and don’t need anybody’s approval.”

So, if you happen to be the lucky one chosen from the audience to share the stage with a bow-tied, bucktoothed, gifted clown, don’t panic. “Just hang loose,” Bazinet offers. “It’s not that easy. But I’ll give you a hand.”

If Bazinet rules the ridiculous in “Saltimbanco,” then brothers Paulo and Marco Lorador preside over the sublime. The Portugal duo known professionally as the Alexis Brothers (in honor of their father, a circus performer himself), has traveled the world for 16 years performing the time-honored act of hand-to-hand balancing.

With their sparkling white, chest-baring unitards and perfectly tuned, symmetrical, bronzed bodies, they look almost superhuman up on the round performance platform. The muscle-rippling poses and impossible balances that they strike are often more challenging than anything even Olympic gymnastics has to offer.

“Sometimes people see me offstage and say, ‘You’re not the guy who was in the show. You looked so big. And those legs,’ Paulo says, grinning. Marco, 25 and the slightly smaller brother, is feeling a bit under the weather. So 27-year-old Paulo, who acts as the foundation for their lifts, gives a solo description of the “ Main-a-main “ experience, as hand-to-hand balancing translates in French.

On this rainy afternoon, he is clad in jeans and a leather jacket which reveal nary a muscle. Without the benefit of the lights and the costume, he does indeed look rather ordinary in stature, though his handsome face and bleached-blond buzz-cut with a dark streak through it make him look like a trendy, Pepe Le Pew-ish punker.

The Elastiques, the trapezists and the Russian Swing divers may rule over the more harrowing moments in the Cirque. But the Lorador brothers, through pure strength, streamlined grace and balance, provide one of the Cirque’s most beautiful and, surprisingly, emotionally stirring acts. The Loradors have burnished their teamwork into fine art, and audience members gasp audibly and repeatedly as the brothers strike what seem like impossible angles time and again, dependent fully on the strength of one another to keep them from tumbling to the ground.

Purrs of pleasure from the audience can also be heard throughout the brothers’ performance. It’s undeniable--there is something simultaneously noble and sensual about their seven-minute display.

When asked if he and Marco ever receive mash notes, Paulo modestly replies: “Well, you know. You have fans who come to see the show, and stop to say ‘hi.’ I like compliments, of course. It makes my day easier.”

Having worked together since they were boys, the brothers find no problem synchronizing their moves. “We don’t have to communicate. We know already. That comes automatically,” Paulo says.

It helps that both brothers are “very professional,” he adds. “When you get on stage, you forget about everything else. We never argue; or at least, very rarely. The good thing is that we have respect for each other. As soon as you lose respect--forget about it. You start calling each other names and things like that--that doesn’t work.”

Which doesn’t mean that they are the Bobbsey Brothers of the Cirque. (There is a pair of identical twins in the show, though--trapezists Karyne and Sarah Steben). With all that togetherness on stage and in practice, they prefer to live separate lives of leisure. “Marco likes to go out, and I like to stay home and watch TV. I’m more of a mellow guy,” Paulo says.

After all these years of performing, the elder Lorador brother is matter-of-fact about the impact he and Marco have on the audience. “When we’re onstage, it’s like we’re in another world, and people watching us somehow want to be us,” he says. “People think--’Oh, those guys--look at them!’ We seem superior.

“But after the lights go off, we’re regular people--human beings who have feelings, too.”