Arts Agenda - The Quickening

Space Ghost (aka George Lowe), who I met while waiting in line for the nicest portable toilets you’ve ever seen, pronounced Cirque du Soleil’s Alegria “a lot better than sitting at home eating a pecan log.” If that’s good enough for you, no need to read on.

The easy translation of “alegria” is “happiness,” but trace the word back and it suggests something more like “liveliness” or “quickening.” A quickening of the heart, of the breath, perhaps a fluttering in the groin; gladness and even sublime sadness, a time of being more vibrantly alive.

So it is with this artful show, continuing at Cumberland Galleria through April 25. Imagine a circus whose most moving moments come courtesy of a clown (Yuri Medvedev) who has a tender parting scene with himself in a fanciful train station. He slips himself a Dear John letter, then mourns the loss so sweetly you’ll be reaching for your oversized, purple hanky. (Fret not, parents with toddlers in tow: Clowns Antòn Valen and Pierre Sauve provide slapstick that even the Teletubby set can enjoy.)

Eccentric characters — a leering hunchbacked ringmaster, a giant with the face and garb of a serene anime boy fattened on moon cakes, Baroque busybodies epileptic over perilous leaps — watch from the wings and rafters while acrobats fly on trampolines and white-haired attendants shoulder bouncing balance beams. An accordion-laced score and the lovely voice of Joan Bluteau weave together hints of a wider mythology — of time ticking and power passing, of magic stories never fully told — the details left to our quickened imaginations.

Speaking of Baroque, the concession prices — rich enough to make even a movie theater blush — are apparently the French-Canadian contribution to the global collusion aimed at bankrupting the American empire. But at least you can go broke on French wine and hot nuts. In fact, send your man-loving SO’s out for some during the hand-balancing gymnastics of Denys Tolstov, lest they end up comparing his sculpted musculature and superhuman strength to your own. (Space Ghost, you should be OK.)

-- Thomas Bell
Cirque du Soleil presents Alegria through April 25 in the blue and yellow big top at Cumberland Galleria, just south of I-285 on Hwy. 41 in Marietta. Tues.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Thurs.-Sat., 4 p.m.; Sun., 1 and 5 p.m. $35-$190. 800-678-5440. www.cirquedusoleil.com.