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Simply breathtaking
February 14, 2004

By M. Kim Lewis
For the Daily Tidings

My wife graciously gives me the sharp elbow as I nod off during the second act of Shakespeare's Henry VI Part II at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. But this is dramatic history.

She wasn't around my high school junior year in 1968 when I, in awe, watched the original performance of "Hair" in Miami, Florida… the actors came walking through the seats around me… I was awake through the whole show!

In the mid-90s, I saw "The Phantom of the Opera" in San Francisco, sitting on the edge of my seat while the Phantom swung and sang through theatrical spaces I had never seen to date.

And now my 50th birthday weekend had arrived… front and center, my wife Ginny and I are honored to review Cirque du Soleil "O" at the famed Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

This time, not a nod ensued…I could hardly be contained!

I can summarize the experience in three simple words, "Go See 'O!'"

This 21st-century high-tech combination of theatrical creativity - which combines, "Hair", "Phantom," the Bard, even Charlie Chaplin - is performed on a 15,000 square-foot stage filled with 1.6 million gallons of water.

Someone mentions in the lobby, "…better be in your seat 'cause the show starts before the curtain rises!" What did this mean? I found out as I hit my seat and two silent Russian clowns carrying an inflatable boat and umbrella full of holes were walking up the theatre isles with real water dripping on their heads following them like a brewing storm.

Like "Hair," the clowns leave the aisles, dragging the inflatable boat into the populated seats of the lower section. Water drips and if they're nearby, the audience feels it. Surprisingly, a nicely dressed man in the audience ("O" character P. J. Bogart) is pulled by the arm by one of the clowns to go somewhere he's in no mood to go. He wants his seat next to his lady - just like me. He finally puts down his beverage and is led by the clown to the front of the two- story-high red curtains not yet drawn for the show.

Out comes a man's long arm in black suit coat and white cloves pulling P.J. into the red curtain as it opens. This is getting wildly suspenseful and the show is just getting started.

The curtains open and the much anticipated water stage and set is revealed. It's an awesome display, massive space over five-stories high, with two live music sets performing from second story level with a David Lettermen style-music set, left and right, against a sea of luminescent water below.

Suddenly, P.J. zips into the air, attached to red silk fabric. He re-appears as a fabulous Russian swing and high dive character.

The next 90 minutes delivers dramatic thematic elements all intertwined simultaneously on sections of the multi-layered stage. "O" is so hugely dynamic, my friends seeing it commented, "I wanted to pay attention to it all, but found myself choosing what to watch more closely as the drama unfolded."

This is great elixir for a "nodder" like me.

Francone Dragone, who wrote and directed "O" says, "Since the beginning of time, there have been hallowed places where people gather to explain the universe. For me the theatre is such a place: sacred, magnificent, and essential. 'O' is homage to theatre, to every story ever born on its stage. Stories of great and little importance, stories of life, love and death, the stage shudders to life. And the story tells itself in its own language."

Perhaps the $90 million stage and production budget which opened "O" in October of 1998 at the Bellagio, was worth the effort director Dragone envisioned. Sold out months in advance despite tickets ranging from $99 to $150 testifies to this. I have to admit, Las Vegas, perhaps the most traveled to destination resort town in the world, may be the perfect city to present "O." The show is neither language nor culture bound. It communicates on every level to every race, language and gender.

P.J. is drawn into the mystifying world of water, earth, sky and fire. As if entering the world of C. S, Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia," he's drawn to a special ballerina with dramatic shades of Romeo and Juliet.

"O" has spontaneous synchronized swimming, with 17 world-class swimmers, choreographed by Olympic gold medalist, Sylvie Frechette. The body-suits are in amazing luminous colors.

Water and trapeze artistry blend when the duo trapeze male twins perform with flying catches from their 45-foot high perch eventually diving to the water below.

The Russian Swing is one of my favorite set devices as it hovers weightlessly above the waters below. The swing propels a cast of expert divers in a trajectory of flight to the waters below.

There are times you think you are watching a circus of the cosmos and other times an intriguingly humorous play. What ever you see, it is yours to interpret and savor for days to follow.

M. Kim Lewis is owner of Kingsley Lewis & Associates, a public relations and marketing firm based in Ashland.