Cirque du Soleil 'Amaluna' - Royal Albert Hall

Peacock feather motif was used in different ways in Amaluna

The great physical courage of the Cirque du Soleil performers can be contrasted with my own woeful lack thereof in not daring to use the Royal Albert Hall's lifts. I did enter one with my theatre companion but lost my nerve when the doors re-opened unexpectedly on the same floor, and slunk out shamefacedly to take the stairs.

Amaluna was loosely based on Shakepeare's The Tempest. Miranda and her mother, Prospera, live on an enchanted island inhabited by lizards and other magical beings. A shipwreck fortuitously brings both Miranda and Miranda's nurse/governess(?) love interests in the forms of Ferdinand and the ship's captain respectively. I had thought while watching it that the nurse/governess character was Prospera, but have now been informed by another review that Prospera was actually the woman with the electric cello. There were numerous powerful, prominent female characters who could have been Prospera or Ariel. Caliban appeared to be represented by the lizard. None of this mattered, though; the awakening of love between Miranda and Ferdinand was easy to perceive and understand.

While most of the acts were indeed dangerous and death-defying, I found watching them to be more restful, mesmerising and somehow calming than a sitting-on-the-edge-of-one's-seat experience. They were beautiful and fluid and consummately elegant. Even the splashing of water out of a pool was done incredibly elegantly. There was a good amount of variation in the acts. My favourites were the aerial hoopist (was this Ariel? the goddess of the moon?) in her glittering blue costume, who 'hooped' down into the half-globe-shaped pool; Miranda's contortion performance on the side of the pool and her antics within the pool (I loved the use of water - how often do you get to see people underwater in a show?); the perfectly-timed men on see-saws routine; and the good old-fashioned gymnastics display sans equipment towards the end. One particularly imaginative turn was a balancing act involving a performer picking up whalebone-shaped pieces of wood with her toes and fashioning them - using balance alone - into an impressive boat-like structure.

We would have benefited from being closer to the stage for some of the acts. The juggling, for example, was quite difficult to fully appreciate from our vantage point.

I admit I wasn't keen on the clowns in love storyline. The female clown, who was the nurse/governess character, seemed to be channelling Rafiki from The Lion King. These clowns were a huge amount more preferable than traditional clowns, though. And I understood their purpose.

photo credit: Larah McElroy Peacock feather via photopin (license)

Next: Timon of Athens