Tent-Less Cirque Ingenieux Impresses

Is it possible to evaluate Cirque without mentioning . . . no, apparently not. Ingenieux, at Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, looks like a farm team for the Cirque du Soleil.

Which is not to put down the individual performers, some of whom could easily qualify for the more famous Cirque.

The basics of Cirque Ingenieux closely resemble elements of Cirque du Soleil: a fantasy framework enveloped in a theatrical environment, eye-popping costumes, mysterious music that’s sometimes sung by a woman in a made-up language, an absence of animals, even the French-flavored name (though Cirque Ingenieux was born last year in Dallas).

What this upstart cirque lacks is the magic of Cirque du Soleil’s big top. This leads to a paradoxical pair of disadvantages: the Cerritos stage isn’t big enough for the more spectacular acts seen at Cirque du Soleil, yet the theater lacks the intimacy of the more famous Cirque’s tent.

Cirque Ingenieux occupies a standard proscenium stage, which means that a relatively small fraction of the audience sits up front. Except for a couple of clowns who venture into the front aisles before the show, there is no attempt to interact directly with the audience. The clowns recruit no one from the audience to assist them onstage.

Still, if you forget about the older cirque, Cirque Ingenieux is impressive. Two first-rate theatrical designers, Jerome Sirlin on sets and projections and Howell Binkley on lights, provide a lustrous look. Jonathan Bixby’s fanciful costumes appear to have been inspired by Mummenschanz and the Ziegfeld Follies as well as the Cirque du Soleil. A pit band plays an evocative score by Kitaro, one of the reigning stars of New Age sounds.

The narrative framework follows a girl and her older brother into a turn-of-the-last-century circus, where we hear the sounds of circus animals, even if we don’t see them. The girl encounters futuristic visions and a sinister enchantress. Sometimes the two siblings separate, but they’re reunited at the end, when the girl realizes her dream of joining the circus. Director Joe Leonardo keeps the narrative fairly coherent, though it’s hardly complex.

The most engaging spectacles along the way are two acts that don’t need the big top’s extra space, because they’re near the ground: a pair of Mongolian sisters, Biambasuren and Biambajav Janchivdorj, who twist their bodies into miraculous shapes, and the solemn and glistening Polish strongmen Jaroslaw Marciniak and Dariusz Wronski, who are accompanied by foreboding martial-rock music.

Two floating visions also enchant: magician Galina Strutinskaja, who levitates in a diaphanous white gown and remarkably long, red hair when she isn’t busy as the wicked Enchantress, and Alexander Streltsov, who uses two white straps to soar above the stage and also plays the story’s “brother.”

BE THERE

Cirque Ingenieux, Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. Tonight-Sunday, 7 p.m.; Saturday, Sunday, 2 p.m. Ends Sunday. $20-$45. (800) 300-4345. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.