Aqua Profonda, Sept 12, 1996

by Circus Oz

 Mebourne Town Hall until September, 1996

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around Sept 12, 1996

Ever seen a nearly naked man play eight squeezy horns with body parts? Well, go see Circus Oz. When circus meets the bizarre, the witty, the political there will always be Circus Oz. The company may have received ongoing funding from the Australia Council but this can never make it  "establishment. It's just too weird and naughty.

Australians really are good at physical theatre, particularly circus. We have Rock and Roll Circus, Women's Circus, Club Swing, Fruit Flies.  But when circus meets the bizarre, the witty, the political we will always have Circus Oz. 

The company which was always so radical, is now part of the cultural establishment, having received ongoing funding from the Australia Council as a major organisation, along with the opera, ballet and state theatres.

Oz seems to have really hit its straps again under the artistic direction of founding member (and ex-acrobat-musician-MC clown-muso etc.) Robin Laurie.  Her expertise and experience along with a finely tuned sense of the absurd, have provided a slick, seamless but still warm and homespun production. She composes spectacular, eccentric and colourful stage pictures using the equally spectacular bodies of the multi-skilled performers.

Gone are the halcyon (for this old hippy) days of perpetual onstage lefty patter and kitschy Australiana. Oz has acquired a newer, young and perky troupe of highly skilled and polished acrobats and clowns, some of whom have graduated from the Fruit Fly Circus.

As in previous shows, there is a loose narrative thread. A naive clown, played by the peppy and charming Nicci Wilks, falls to earth from her flyin' machine landing herself in the deep water of the title. She wanders lost in a land peopled with a mad masked clown race, chair balancers, a cluster of pole climbers, a golfer, a guy who lives upside down and a rogue clown who steals juggling clubs.

There are many wonderful acts but a few favourites were duo twin aerialists, Eleanor Davies and Nicci Wilks. Davies and Michael Ling do a great tightrope act set in a Hawaiian bar in which Ling walks on a burning rope. Just about everything Ling does is so exceptional it defies description.

Musical director Julie Mcinnes returns with another terrific set with the most hilarious act coming from one of the musos. Chris Lewis' near-naked horn playing is worth travelling through sleet and snow to see.

KATE HERBERT