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Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 14:22
To call it a spectacular extravaganza of mime, silliness, slapstick and poignancy doesn't tell half the story. Slava is a clown who invents stunning effects, and presents them with breathtaking imagery.
The set is simply a backing of panels like moon-cratered quilts constantly manipulated by the cast. There is a continuous sound track of song, music and railway engines, and mood-changing lighting that plays on clouds of smoke which at one point fill the stage for an hypnotic shadow effect. There are intimate moments too, which depend on immaculate miming, as when the leading clown brings to life a hat and coat on a stand.
But the spectacle is awe-inspiring. Millions of soap bubbles are blown on to the stage, and the first half ends with the clowns getting entangled in a spun web of filligree. Gradually the web extends across the stage, and into the auditorium.
Audience participation is unavoidable (although only the unfortunate front rows get sprayed with water) as the web gradually covers the stalls and even the circle – no safety there, then.
The clowns rampage through the audience during the interval, and the second half concludes with the most spectacular effect of all. A love letter is torn up, and the pieces thrown into the air. They multiply, until the entire audience is enveloped in a howling blizzard of paper shreds. Then dozens of coloured balloons and spheres, the largest some 15 feet in diameter, are propelled about the auditorium. It was some 20 minutes after the performance ended that the first patrons started dragging themselves away.
This incredible show imprinted an inane grin on my face the whole way through. Pure joy and theatrical magic.
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