Cirque du Soleil – Banana Shpeel – A New Twist On Vaudeville

Written on October 16, 2009 by Marc Eastman in Newsish

Start asking people what show they would most like the chance to win tickets to, and I’ll bet a pretty high percentage of the answers you get are going to include the words, “Cirque du Soleil.” Well, they have a new show coming to Chicago on November 19th (also opening in New York on Feb 4, 2010), and I can’t think of anything I’d more like a chance at tickets for.

Cirque du Soleil – Banana Shpeel
is on its way, and it looks brilliant. Take a look at the show’s homepage for a lot more info.

Banana Shpeel is a roller-coaster mix of styles that blends comedy with tap, hip hop, eccentric dance and slapstick, all linked by a hilarious narrative that ignites a succession of wacky adventures. This is not circus, or a musical or a variety show, or even vaudeville. It is Banana Shpeel!

Propelled by crazy humor and intense choreography, Banana Shpeel plunges us into the world of Shmelky, a cruel and irritable producer who dangles fame and fortune in front of Emmett, an innocent and romantic actor who has come to audition for him. Emmett soon finds himself trapped in a flamboyant, anarchic world where Shmelky sows terror and reigns supreme. Emmett falls in love with the beautiful Katie and meets a bunch of absurd characters, including the strange Banana Man. But who is this mysterious Banana Man and how can Emmett escape the clutches of Shmelky and his henchmen?

If you’ve only had the chance to catch Cirque du Soleil by way of “screening,” you’re missing out on the truest delivery of the wonder these spectaculars really are, and if you’ve only seen one or two shows, you probably haven’t come to a full appreciation of how varied and amazing they can be. Banana Shpeel hopes to put as much of that variety as it can into one show, while still taking solid aim at the glory days of vaudeville.

Taking its name from a classic icon of slapstick humor, there seems to be a great deal of Chaplin/Keaton homage going on here, and it’s wonderful to see someone return to one of the paragons of comedic styling… especially one such as this, which has been virtually untouched since the Marx Brothers.

Deceptive in its apparent simplicity, slapstick, when done well, usually strikes its audiences deepest, because we are able to relate to it so quickly and easily. Whether the old banana peel gag gives us the chance to look back on our own misfortunes and laugh at them, or a somewhat more complex scenario delivers to us the generally crazy, mixed-up world we live in and lets us share in the joy of being similarly bound to a realm that is so often nonsensical, slapstick is uniquely able to make us laugh while forcing us to focus on ourselves.

For myself, nothing anyone is trying to perform can ever match the comedic obliteration of my son’s own “Jelly for the World,” sketch, but a lot of things deliver a lot more comedy because my experience with that “sketch” exists. Playing out for all the world like a scene in a movie that must have required dozens of takes to get right, my wife and I sat in the living room while our three year-old son napped, when the smallest of sounds and a quick blur of indeterminate color made only the minutest impression on our awareness. Giving it up as the cat, life went on for a minute or two, but then a noise came from the kitchen… the direction the blur had gone. Then the refrigerator door opened, and while our cat has some talent insofar as the opening of doors, eyebrows raised. Another blur appeared, but this time my wife and I were looking in the blur’s direction, and our gaze froze it in it’s tracks. Like a cartoon burglar caught in the spotlight, our son froze… eyes darting between us and his bedroom… one hand dripping a telltale purple… the other making as if to hide the jar behind his back. Hesitation. Indecision. And then it started. Unsure of what to make of his options, he just started flinging jelly every which way. Jelly flew through the air like something Dr. Seuss might have drawn, and before the last of it hit the ground, apparently believing us sufficiently distracted, he was gone, and you could all but see the small cloud dissipating where he had so recently stood… with a tiny, yellow “zoom” in it.

My wife and I laughed until we cried, and I came rather close to actually passing out for not being able to breathe. But, what the heck was so funny? A question for the ages possibly, but the zany chaos of it was just too much. The ludicrous event which I had just been part of was such that it wasn’t possible to avoid laughing. But why? Perhaps it’s just the outlandish display of innocence and utter lack of world-weariness trying to tackle a situation it couldn’t fathom. Possibly it has something to do with the metaphor for all the times I found myself in the same position, except the adult, unfunny version… caught in a spot where all alternatives seem poor choices, and all eyes are on me.

However it works exactly, slapstick is a deeper, more devious affair than most people think, and it is a major challenge because of the emotion people don’t even realize are tied up in the thing.

With only a small sampling to work with, I am nevertheless quite excited to see Cirque du Soleil (who better?) taking up the slapstick mantle, and the apparent wide variety of the show only adds to that excitement.

Those who get a chance to see Banana Shpeel in Chicago (again, opening Nov. 19th) or New York (Feb. 4, 2010) are going to count themselves lucky for a long time.

I encourage you again to check out the Banana Shpeel homepage, and take a look at a couple of videos put together for the show.

Behind-the-scenes, and interview clip footage