The Anti-Cirque du Soleil

Smokin': Amy Saunders as Miss Behave, one of the featured performers in La Clique. Photo Simon-Pierre Gingras. Courtesy Just for Laughs.

The anti-Cirque du Soleil is finally here.

La Clique —  an international traveling show that melds the sensuality of cabaret with the slapstick of vaudeville and the freakishness of the circus —  has made its North American debut in Montreal as part of the Just For Laughs Festival.

Because Montreal is command central for Cirque du Soleil, comparisons with the global circus powerhouse are inevitable. “These artists don’t belong in Cirque du Soleil. They are real characters and real people with world-class skills,” says Brett Haylock, who produces the show with fellow Australian David Bates. A few minutes into the show at the Just for Laughs Museum, it’s clear that their artistry and weirdness hasn’t been flattened and squeezed into a spectacle that can be mass-marketed in Las Vegas or Disney World.

Many of La Clique’s acts developed in queer and fetish clubs; they are the singular products of each performer’s strange talent and personality. And throughout their performance their sweating-from-the-strain bodies are exposed and close enough to touch. The show is erotic, odd and amazing. In short, it feels like a real circus.

The pale-skinned contortionist Captain Frodo has devised an incredibly funny bit where he squeezes his gangly body — clad only in a terry towel headband and white shorts — through two tennis rackets; to the horror of the audience, his dislocated arm flops in the air like a rubber chicken. (X-rays of his out-of-their-socket body parts are available on his website.) Just before Berliner David O’Mer’s act, a long piece of translucent plastic is stretched over the audience in the front row; his main prop is a water-filled bathtub, and he likes to get the audience damp as he swings from the rafters in a pair of tight, wet jeans.

La Clique began as a small cabaret a few years ago at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and soon became one of its hottest acts. In 2004, it started touring around the world, picking up acts along the way.

Don't call him Tubby: Berliner David O'Mer combines personal hygiene with acrobatics. Photo Simon-Pierre Gingras. Courtesy Just for Laughs.

“Montreal is the capital of the circus, but I think what audiences will experience with us that is quite different is the intimacy and the proximity of the performers,” says Ursula Martinez, a veteran London-based cabaret performer and stripper. During a cheeky striptease routine with a red handkerchief, Martinez walks up to a woman sitting in the front row and wiggles her bare vagina in her face.

The troupe may help Cirque du Soleil-fatigued Montrealers rediscover the thrill of the circus. Mega-productions make it easy to forget that circus performers are made of flesh and blood; the elaborate costumes and complicated choreography mask their anguish, effort and fear, and their apparent perfection sanitizes the experience. La Clique’s artists are so close we see their limbs twitch and their balance falter. What if Miss Behave — one of the world’s last remaining female sword swallowers — has an off day and splices her esophagus? Will trapeze artist Miss Flee fall to the ground? A few times I thought she might. And isn’t the possibility that someone could die part of the reason we go to the circus? We want to feel those death-defying feats in our bones.

“It’s a celebration of the human body, and it’s in your face. People respond to that. People turn to strangers and engage and smile and laugh,” says Haylock. It’s hard not to react when a performer like Martinez — who has the comic timing of a Brit and the grace of a flamenco dancer (she’s half British and half Spanish) — glides across the stage, nude except for her stiletto heels. Irish singer Camille O’Sullivan is also a relentless flirt, seducing the audience with her repertoire of Marlene Dietrich classics and her corseted body (at one point, she stretched out across three people in the front row).

Carrying the torch: Irish singer Camille O'Sullivan invokes the spirit of Marlene Dietrich. Photo Simon-Pierre Gingras. Courtesy Just for Laughs.

In fact, Dietrich’s ghost seems present throughout the show, likely because of the unique performance space. La Clique has done its best to create on an Old World feel for their first trip to North America. The cavernous Just for Laughs Museum possesses an eerie view of the city’s night skyline through circular, paned windows. Before the show begins, the crowd is packed into an elevator and taken to the fifth floor, adding to the sensation of being transported into 1920s Paris — or perhaps Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s boudoir in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The lights are dim and the audience surrounded by ceiling-high velvet curtains. There’s no orchestra, only a piano, and a tiny circular stage. Haylock, who is also La Clique’s barker, greets and seats the audience himself. “Creating a space that’s opulent and intimate is really integral to this show,” says Haylock, after the performance. “It’s a big challenge.”

But La Clique’s performers rise to it, particularly the women. Martinez, O’Sullivan and Miss Behave (Amy Saunders) tie the fast-paced show together with their playful sexuality and impeccable comic timing. Wearing a fantastically tight red dress, Saunders blows a latex glove up over her head and becomes a human rooster. Later, she quips to the audience, “With my stuff, you don’t so much ask yourselves how, but why?”

Montreal is the Clique’s only Canadian stop, and it’s a big one for the troupe because it’s the first time they are producing their show with a big operation like Just for Laughs. Every year, the Just for Laughs Festival (which runs until the end of July) invites a show that’s been generating buzz internationally, but isn’t necessarily comedy; previous hits have included Tap Dogs and Stomp. There are whispers that Just for Laughs wants to snap up La Clique for a global tour. Is there a danger that the show will balloon into La Clique du Soleil?

It’s doubtful, says Haylock. “Our show has wide appeal, but it’s not commercial,” he says. “We’ve had lots of offers. Our next stop is New York. Then we’ll see what happens.”

La Clique runs until July 30 at Montreal’s Just For Laughs Museum.

Patricia Bailey is a writer and broadcaster based in Montreal.

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