Cirque Du Soleil’s OVO - Review by Joe Calleri

What: Cirque Du Soleil’s OVO

Venue and Dates: January 17 to March 24, 2013, Grand Chapiteau at Docklands .
Reviewer: Joe Calleri
Stars: 4

Watching Cirque Du Soleil’s latest uber production, OVO, with a full-house audience under the Grand Chapiteau at Melbourne’s Docklands, I was reminded of why many enjoy eating a MacDonald’s meal overseas: regardless of which country you may be in, you know exactly what you will get, and how your meal will taste. Therein lays one of the essential dilemmas for OVO: you are left with a gnawing, slightly uncomfortable, déjà vu-type feeling that you have seen and heard this production before – only performed with different costumes and on a different set.

We embark on a fantastic voyage into a world occupied on this occasion by a variety of brightly coloured insects. Audiences will be highly impressed with Gringo Cardia’s colourful, versatile, set design (especially three giant flowers with their opening petals, that I thought were grossly under-utilised during the production), and by the beautiful intricacies of Liz Vandal’s insect-inspired costume design.

As is usual with Cirque’s shows, the story line – for this production, something to do with a giant egg (hence the title of the show) - goes nowhere, and provides the barest of connecting tissue for the stunning, refined, jaw-dropping skills displayed by Cirque’s performers.

Two acts that I thought deserved special mention were the remarkable Diablo routine performed by Tony Frebourg, and Julaiti Ailati’s slackwire act.

On the down-side, at well over two hours, this production is overly long, and could easily do without the usual Cirque comedy routines performed by the MC who utters gibberish and the cutesy audience involvement.

Ultimately, OVO represents high-end, high- concept, big-budget entertainment that 21^st century audiences demand for their hard-earned entertainment dollar. However, OVO also suffers from the malady of most modern day blockbusters, in that while it possesses off-the chart light, sound and visual spectacle values, it lacks any soul and meaningful connection with its audience.