Cirque du Soleil’s new show is a poetic meditation on the evolution of life, from its amphibious beginnings to modern-day Homo sapiens longing to transcend the earth’s gravity and reach the skies.
Oh, who are we kidding? People aren’t thronging to the big tent pitched in a Citi Field parking lot to experience spiritual transcendence. They’re going to Cirque’s “Totem” to see really buff people wearing as little clothing as possible doing a lot of really cool things.
On that front, the circus franchise’s 28th production doesn’t disappoint, what with a dazzling array of acrobatic acts, several of them tinged with a PG-13 eroticism played out in a lush theatrical setting to a nonstop, world-music-flavored score.
Writer/director Robert Lepage, stager of the Met’s “Ring” cycle, has devised a shaky concept involving evolution, complete with an amusing visual representation of the stages of man and a bearded, Darwin-like scientist who turns out to be a mean juggler.
As usual, the visuals are stunning, from the giant turtle- shell-like structure hanging from the ceiling to the tall bamboo reeds flanking a stage that projections turn into an ever- changing body of water. Periodically descending from above is a “Crystal Man” who looks like a human disco ball, while the other performers wear everything from skintight, tadpole-like outfits to ornate Native American furs and headdresses.
Just what a unicycling Chinese quintet tossing and catching bowls on each other’s heads and a couple on roller skates have to do with evolution is anyone’s guess. Still, they’re thrilling, as are the Russian acrobats turning somersaults on flexible planks.
But if the tiresome clowns we get here — an inept fisherman and sequin-shorted lifeguards competing for the attention of a woman in a bikini — represent what our species has evolved into, we’re in trouble.