Live Review: Cirque du Soleil, "Delirium" - Scotiabank Place, Ottawa, ON, November 25, 2006

Last night, Mrs. H and I went out to Peterborough (er, I mean, Kanata) to check out the latest Cirque du Soleil production to hit the nation's capital. I had never seen a Cirque production before so I didn't have any expectations going in, and that was a good thing, because I think I would have been disappointed.

Thematically, "Delirium" tells the story of some guy's dream (I think), to a percussion-heavy, New Age-sounding bunch of songs that were heavy on vocal gymnastics but light on actual relevance to any narrative, as far as I could tell. Visually, the lighting and projections were very well done, but as with the music, nothing really fit into the larger whole. As for the performers, there was a guy walking around on stilts, a woman who was able to do crazy things with six hula-hoops at once, and a bunch of topless male acrobats with clean-shaven chests who appeared alongside a myriad of other characters who seemingly had nothing to do with each other.

Mildly interesting for about the first 15 or 20 minutes, but after that, "Delirium" doesn't attempt to make any sense whatsoever. At the end, you're left thinking that you just saw something but what it was, you're not quite sure - and not in a good way.

An overindulgent, bloated and bloody faux-Avant Garde mess of a thing.

Overall rating: 3/10