STAR-CROSSED … AND TOSSED
Think of The 7 Fingers (Les 7 doigts de la main) as a mini Cirque du Soleil performing onstage instead of in a ring under a Big Tent.
This Montreal-based circus troupe and creative collective is making its Music Center debut with a brief two-week run of its current show, Duel Reality, at the Ahmanson Theatre only through September 22.
They’ve concocted a mash up of circus and Shakespeare, framed as a competitive face-off between the Capulets and the Montagues, in an acrobatics-ized version of Romeo and Juliet.
The action begins with several players standing in the aisles, yelling and challenging each other over the heads of the audience, then moves to the stage, as the opposing teams pair off, tossing, tumbling, pushing, rolling, bouncing and bounding off chests and each other.
The families are wearing red or blue and audience members receive a wrist band of one or the other color to identify which side they’re on; blue to the audience’s left and red to the right, matching the colors of the sides onstage. A political statement, no doubt.
Over a brisk 75 minutes you’ll witness highly choreographed feats of gymnastic, acrobatic and circus moves, performed often in competitive pairs, as red and blue challenge each other. There’s pole climbing with balletic poses and quick-falls to the floor, done single-bodied on two separate poles, then double bodied on both poles. Interludes of energetic and romantic dance help to identify our lead characters, Romeo and Juliet, and the “plot” is enhanced by Shakespeare’s text projected on the screen and read aloud by the performers.
Lighting design by Alexander Nichols gives us the backdrop of a gridded, pixelated board that flashes red and blue, together and separately, in checkerboard patterns or projecting circular symbols cut with lines and a silhouetted pyramid, its edges dividing the two colors geometrically.
While the action continues on stage, the backdrop images constantly change, including one especially beautiful projection of the Aurora Borealis, where shadows of the aerial performers add another dimension. Colin Gagné’s propulsive music and percussive soundtrack keep the energy high, except in the quieter moments, when the troupe sings sadly or sweetly, to emphasize the mood.
You’ve seen aerial silks, where a beautiful woman is suspended in the air using only flowing scarves; well here’s that’s done equally delicately but spinning and balancing from chains, the very chains the families were using to pull Romeo and Juliet apart. And there are human pyramids, with people balancing atop one another on shoulders, hands and feet, high up in the air.
There’s a juggling act, one performer using balls, the other traditional juggling pins. They keep adding more of each while still tossing and catching until, as I counted, they both were juggling eight items each.
The “hooper” spun the hoops around her arms, her legs, ankles, her neck, her feet, and tumblers passed through both her hoops and her own arms and legs. By the end there were far too many hoops to count, all swirling flawlessly around her waist at once.
Then the battle of the balance board, where one of the two men jumped so high, he looked like he might disappear into the lights. They flipped, once, twice, three times and more, and still stuck the landing, on their feet and their backs, only to spring up once more.
But by the end one dies; Juliet goes around, making each player take off their color tops, leaving no more red, no more blue, everyone’s wearing black, and leaving the war behind, they begin to embrace.
Then the final act, a trapeze where Romeo dangles Juliet from his arms and legs as the others lift her to him; when they finally sway together, a lovely change of plot leads to a far happier ending than the one in the play. “Why not” says one performer from the stage, “We have enough tragedy.”
The cast of players is wildly diverse but as my plus-one said, notice how in the lighting their skin all looks the same. There’s subtle meaning in that, in the choice of red and blue and in making the ending happy.
They’re saying it’s time for all senseless wars to stop…onstage and in our lives…and let love prevail. The closing image is of the two lovers perched on the trapeze, their shadows becoming a character, as the outlines of a heart shape is projected around them.
photos by David Bonnet
Duel Reality
The 7 Fingers
Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave. in Los Angeles
ends on September 22, 2024 in L.A.
for tickets (starting at $35), visit CTG
