The best thing about Sophie’s Surprise 29th — and there are many excellent things about this six-person circus— is the vibe. Pumping party hits, mostly from the early 2000s, teasing and chatting up the audience — and commandeering some of its members — the company creates an atmosphere that’s playful, intimate, and you know… death-defying.
The structure is loose: we’re at a surprise twenty-ninth birthday party for a woman named Sophie, who, apparently, has a lot of friends who are in the circus.
I’ve always enjoyed a birthday party that includes screaming, and a lot of animal noises came out of me during the Act 1 roller-skating adagio. That’s an act in which two performers in roller skates spin at high speeds on a small, circular surface. Nathan Price provides a lot of the muscle here, flinging (temporary replacement!) Emily McCarthy out in front of him as her wheels leave the ground and she performs acrobatic tricks while, essentially, being spun in a blender.
In the York Theatre, Price and McCarthy are performing this act right on the lip of the stage — and there’s a big drop from that lip to the floor. I have no idea how the company is handling liability issues, but I had a very good time.
In another vein, I also particularly enjoyed clown/unicyclist Sam Goodburn’s work. His character is a drug dealer, which is a questionable choice, but the drugs he’s dealing are cookies — and, not to give too much away, he does impressive things with those tidbits.
Inventive and good-humoured, Goodburn is also great with audience participation. And he puts on a pair of pants while riding his unicycle.
Contortionist Angie McIlroy-Wagar avoids the ick factor that almost always feels like the point of contortion acts; instead of becoming a bug or a snake that moves from one unsettling pose to another, McIlroy-Wagar’s character is simply a woman enjoying her body, its bits and its bendiness, as she flows through her choreography to the strains of “I Touch Myself”.
Some elements were less successful for me. Although it had other folks in the audience in stitches, I wasn’t interested in Thomas Evans’s reading of his erotic Twilight fan fiction, for instance.
And, here’s the weird part: I was less impressed than I felt a should be by some of the more familiar aerial acts: hanging rope (corde lisse), aerial straps, aerial hoop, static trapeze. We’re in the middle of a circus renaissance, so a lot of performers possess these skills, I’ve seen a lot of variations on these acts, and it’s easy to feel jaded. But these forms still require crazy levels of strength and skill. In the static trapeze number that Price, McCarthy, and Evans performed the night I saw the show, Price dropped McCarthy from his trapeze, she fell headfirst and in the splits towards the floor until Price caught her at the last minute. What more do I want from these people?
The most original elements worked best for me, but my attention never left the building.
And I loved the performer/audience relationships. After the show, I ran into the audience conscript who’d had the most to do. I congratulated her — because she’d been fantastic — and she confessed she’d had a beer at the intermission and was terrified she was going to pee on one of the performer’s heads.
Now that’s living on the edge. That’s a party.
Accept the invitation.
SOPHIE’S SURPRISE 29TH Directed by Katharine Arnold, Isis Clegg-Vinell, and Nathan Price. Produced by Three Legged Productions and presented by The Cultch. At the York Theatre until June 28. Tickets and information.
PHOTO CREDIT: See that woman at the middle of the bottom of the frame? I’m with her. (This photo of Nathan Price and Isis Clegg-Vinell, who usually performs this act, is by Roger Robinson)
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