Cirque du Soleil constructs new universes, letting us forget the perils of our original, guiding with a brilliant panoply of talent and genius. The acrobatics, the unfathomable artistic concept, the mystery -- all stimulate inquiring minds. Would seeing under the magician's table tarnish the trick? Would a glimpse behind the scenes humanize the body of fantasy that KÀ has created?
No, witnessing the backside of the majestic production only elevates the enigma and fuels more praise: There is nothing in the world like this show.
The anxiety of further enlightenment comes on the premise that KÀ stands as one of the most expensive stage shows in history. My backstage pass to the show, which was designed and built for an estimated $165 million, solidified the notion that the technological sorcery detracts none from the intellectual genius. (Such unfettered access has been given to a select few. Only 60 Minutes has had such freedom.)
The elaborate backdrop is merely an atmospheric portal into the amazing group of artistes. The exorbitant performing complex serves as a beautiful complement to the thespians playing in and on it, not a tool to upstage them. KÀ excels ... far beyond merely spectacular.
Perhaps half expecting to find people doing back-flips off the walls and handsprings out of the bathroom, the calm sense of peace that echoes throughout the green roombefore the first show is surprising. Most of the noise comes from the clanging of a row of washing machines, imitating a laundromat -- but your local coin-op doesn't wash tens of thousands dollars worth of costumes every day.
Around the 7 p.m. call time, the 160 custom-made safety harnesses hanging in the main corridor start to fly off the racks and around tiny waists of acrobatic artists. Performers scurry in: The 30- to 90-minute makeup session begins in a series of dressing areas that resemble an athletic locker room but with individual mirrors for self-application.
The large multilevel break area comes complete with two prodigious-screen televisions, a kitchen and a pool table. The crew is first to break out the omnipresent dominos. A billiard game is already in progress, and performers in full makeup are surfing the Web, using all five computers in the back of the room. This is artistic bliss: fun and games.
Donning a utility belt Batman would be envious of, each technician has a specialized job and a corresponding group of gadgets. Dangling carabiners clink; gloves, knives, radios and assorted gizmos are visible as the competition at the pool table heats up. The vernacular of a basement poker game starts to build as the puppeteers get more serious about the dotted domino tiles.
Fully dressed performers start to trickle in; the transition from reality to fantasy starts to seize. The mostly local tech crew blends with the performers culled from 17 different countries; it looks like a truck stop that was invaded by Olympians.
This waiting room of theatrical nirvana is almost as fascinating as the public forefront. A closed-circuit camera gives a view of the incoming audience, a waiting tool for performers before their call to places. A smaller TV displays one of 26 closed-circuit live video feeds that monitor the area and makes channel surfing a whole lot more interesting.
Another flash of the amazing international dynamic hits. Hysterical trash talk spills out in different languages as the artists fill in the domino spots vacated by the crew. Performers are lining up to have their makeup airbrushed, their hairpieces glued on. The marriage of technology and art starts to come into focus.
The stage manager sits atop the back of the theater, hidden behind an arch of windows in the control booth. She is OZ, the one pulling the strings from inside the amazing creature. Looking up from the audience, the room resembles the deck of the USS Starship Enterprise, and the interior circuitry lends even more to the sci-fi feel. Two large control boards sit below an eerie big red button -- the emergency stop. It has never been pressed.
Making one of her memorized 800-plus cue calls to the staff and the majority of performers wearing wireless earpieces, the stage manager guides the show with precision and grace. "Snake, stop," she calls mid-show through the internal intercom. The 80-foot-long puppet freezes in midair during the forest scene, the hidden performer controlling it heeds the ubiquitous voice of the manager. Keeping on schedule every night, a stopwatch sits on the table. "Snake, go." The beast slithers down into the void below.
The view from the booth provides a vantage point where the gargantuan complex can be taken in as a whole. Two moving platforms operate independent of each other, twisting and turning horizontally and vertically, thus creating the most unusual performing space in the world. The Sand Cliff Deck is one of the main platforms. It is manipulated by the gantry crane, which is what allows it to move up and down and rotate 360 degrees -- all at the same time. The namesake sand that pours off it is actually granular cork from Portugal.
The Tatami Deck, weighing another 100,000 pounds, resonates like an industrial shipyard from the wings when moving into a new position. The audience never hears the racket as each of the 1,950 seats in the theater have two individual speakers, blaring the voices and the live music coming from several floors down in a separate sound room. A total of 524,150 watts of amplifier power fill the space in 16 different seating zones, allowing for the state-of-the-art sound effects to be targeted and directionally customized.
Not long after the first show comes to a close does the green room erupt into a sea of different scents. In the lull before the 10:30 performance, microwaved Chinese noodles mix with Subway sandwiches, and chopsticks are unwrapped next to sporks. Running upstairs to work out, trampolines bounce and barbells leave the rack in the second-floor gym. Resembling a health club that had a Halloween party, artists in full maquillage break into various exercise routines while passing the time before another physically exhausting show. Specific types of training are offered every night, something as calming as yoga, as complicated as the martial art Capoeira or as dangerous as falling and climbing on the pulley system.
Witnessing the underbelly of KÀ embodies the essence of theater. Any worry that opening the door behind the stage would spoil the artistic bliss is unfounded. Tricks are revealed, and secrets exposed. And through it all ... KÀ remains true magic.