Zarkana

Zarkana at Radio City Music Hall, Friday July 1 2011.

Zarkana by Cirque Du Soliel is a dark and magical experience. The music consists of romantic, blues-infused ballads between two quarreling lovers. The set design and directing were incredibly well done. Super detailed and every detail alive with activity, it is usually not overwhelming but just the right amount of whelming (at least for Cirque...). The use of technology in the show seems to mark a new era of stage design for Cirque du Soliel, with the sophisticated use of moving stage parts, video, animation, and projections. Unfortunately, it seems that the complex set design compensated for the not-so-incredible acts. The entire first act was filled with relatively unimpressive performances, including a notably lame flag toss scene. The final scene of the first act was very dissapointing, with cyr wheels all willy-nilly without anything actually happening. In general, there was a surprising amount of mistakes and the performances seemed way too short. The second act was much improved, with scaled-back sets and consequently better performances, such as the wheel of death and the banquine (even though it seemed like a lower quality version of Quidam's banquine). One act that stood out to me was the handbalancing act with Anatoliy Zalevsky, who used his shirt and pants to slide around on a slippery platform. A surprise was sand-artist Erika Chen who used sand to quickly illustrate the "story" of Zarkana; I'm still on the fence whether I actually liked this performance or thought that it was something I've seen on youtube too many times.

Banquine

Anatoliy Zalevsky

Erika Chen

Even though I think I like Ovo better, I would still recommend seeing Zarkana. If not for the acts, then for the sappy sensational music and for the great stage design and directing.