THEATER | Cirque du Soleil's "Alegria" is a subdued—well, RELATIVELY subdued—spectacle at Target Center

At the intermission of Cirque du Soleil's Alegria, I ran into FOX 9's Todd Walker in the Target Center concourse. "Do you like it?" he asked, then immediately continued to say, "I don't like it. It's all clowns! I don't like clowns. I don't like it." It's true: if clowns are not your thing you should probably avoid Alegria. You probably also want to steer clear if you're not a fan of saxophones, confetti, bodysuits, or silver pubic hair. (More on that later.)

Alegria was the second Cirque show I've seen, following last year's production of Kooza in St. Paul. Alegria is a different show, but there's no mistaking the family resemblance: feats of human dexterity presented in outrageous costumes with interludes of broad clowning, tied together by something that might kind of resemble a plot if looked at in the right light, from the right angle, at the right time of day, after the right number of beers. According to the Cirque Web site, Alegria is about "power and the handing down of power over time" and "the evolution from ancient monarchies to modern democracies." To the Bastille, with sequins!

Though it's a spectacle such as the Cirque brand name guarantees, Alegria is a significantly more subdued show than Kooza—both for better and for worse. The circus stunts are very decidedly less mind-blowing than Kooza's; dating from 1994, Alegria is 13 years older than Kooza, and the stakes were lower then. To be sure, this is not stuff you should try at home—crazy contortion, acrobats flipping over one another on trampolines—but while the Alegria stunts go past Wow! to Holy crap!, the Kooza stunts go all the way to How is that possible on God's green Earth!?

There are also fewer stunts to see; the show is a bit shorter, and as Todd observed, significantly longer stretches belong to the clowns. Fortunately, the Alegria clowns are much easier to enjoy than the insufferable Kooza clowns; the humor relies on clever but simple gags using minimal props, and the clowns' attitude is more whimsical than bratty. The highlight of the show is, oddly, a moody interlude at the end of the first act, in which a clown goes on a Ringo-like odyssey past a train platform and into a snowy landscape. The scene climaxes in a techically simple but visually stunning arena-filling snowstorm.

Having been eclipsed by bigger and better shows such as Kooza and Love (the Beatles show, which I haven't seen but which won raves even from people who expected to hate it), at this point Alegria is best understood as a show for loyal Cirque fans. If you've seen a Cirque show before and absolutely loved it, you'll want to see Alegria. If you were unimpressed by your last Cirque experience, you can definitely take a pass on this one. If you're looking for a Cirque introduction and you expect to have another opportunity (which will probably arise within the next year or two without your having to leave town), you might want to hold out.

But Cirque is Cirque, and if you need a fix, Alegria will provide it. It has all the signature elements: the crazy costumes (including lots of feathers, presumably supplied for post-revolutionary tarring purposes), the common-denominator clowning, the expert stunts, and that trademark pounding music. The Alegria score, by René Dupéré, runs a gamut of ethnic flavors as it tries and repeatedly fails to escape the gravitational pull of smooth jazz. It sounds kind of like the soundtrack to the most exciting elevator ride you've ever had.

Oh, and about that silver pubic hair. Early in the show, my friend pointed out that a shirtless male acrobat's costume seemed, from our seats, to suggest a profusion of silvery curls right above the belt line. I responded that if that's in fact what they were, it would be unsurprising that after a certain number of years appearing in Cirque shows, one simply started growing tinsel straight from the follicles. If you happen to find out, don't tell me—I don't want to know.

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Jay Gabler

Jay Gabler (jay@tcdailyplanet.net, Twitter @JayGabler) is the Daily Planet's arts editor.