Miamiaudiences who have been flocking to the show and snapping uptickets since i

Tag : Paper Flocking
BY CHRISTINE DOLEN cdolen@MiamiHerald.com
If a Samuel Beckett devotee were to create a piece for Cirque duSoleil -- which, depending on your view of Waiting for Godot , may not be utterly unimaginable -- the result might look a lotlike Slava's Snowshow .
The long-running, immensely popular celebration of clowning andsnow has its official opening at the Adrienne Arsht Center for thePerforming Arts on Tuesday. But it's already a hit with Miamiaudiences who have been flocking to the show and snapping uptickets since it began performances on Thursday. Ticket sales areso strong, in fact, that the show's run has been extended throughAug. 31.
Slava's Snowshow is the creation of a masterful Russian clown and showbizentrepreneur named Slava Polunin. He originated the show's centralrole, the Yellow Clown, and often plays it. Sometimes, though,others in the company don the yellow costumes, a red wig that looksas though Yellow has stuck his finger in an electrical socket justbefore his entrance, and expressive makeup that gives him asad-eyed look no matter how far one is from the stage.
Artem Zhimolokhov, a member of the troupe that includes RobertSaralp, Oleg Lugovskoy, Ivan Polunin, Elena Ushakova, NikolaiTerentiev, Tatiana Karamysheva, Dmitry Khamzin, Oleg Sosnovikov andSlava himself, played the Yellow Clown at the performance I saw. Hemight be Yellow when you see the show, or Slava might, or someoneelse might. Unless you're an avid follower of Slava Polunin, itprobably doesn't matter: The master has taught his cast well, andthe show is mostly about playful (and sometimes interactive)spectacle anyway.
Slava's Snowshow is a wintry mural that holds as many individualized stories asthere are folks in the audience. Each observer reacts differently,connects to different facets of the show, feels the stirring ofdifferent experiences or emotions or memories. For some, Slava's Snowshow will be joyous fun and nothing more; for others, the experiencewill burrow deeper and turn poignant.
The Yellow Clown is, at first, such a down-in-the-dumps fellow thathe shuffles onstage carrying a noose, which he drapes around hisneck. But mortal danger doesn't last long: A posse of Green Clownssees to that.
Yellow grows taller as he breathes in, shorter as he exhales. A bedbecomes his storm-tossed boat in frigid seas. Pierced with arrowsshot by a Green Clown who looks like a bedraggled fallen angel, hestaggers, then staggers some more, then appears to die. Yet momentslater, he's fine, which is why this is Slava's Snowshow and not Waiting for Godot .
Spectacle, effects, music and movement -- not language -- are thedriving forces in Slava's Snowshow . At times, the combination of smoke effects, lighting and boomingmusic move the show briefly into an ominous place; at one point,with the smoke turned red by the lights, Yellow seems brieflytrapped in clown hell.
Such moments, and the fact that a close-up clown might suddenly bestanding on the back of the seat beside you, are the reason theshow isn't recommended for children younger than 8 or so. Manylittler ones were in a matinee audience with me, and a few wereclearly terrified at times. The Russian clowns, however, offeredmade-for-Miami reassurance, sweetly murmuring, '' No tengas miedo ,'' or don't be afraid.
Real children and grownups who can still access a childlike spiritwill have a ball at Slava's Snowshow -- literally. After a wondrous blizzard has carpeted the ArshtCenter's Sanford and Dolores Ziff Opera House with paper ''snow,''the performers bat gigantic balls out into the audience, whichkeeps the giant orbs soaring, much as a motley collection ofphysically deft clowns keep the spirits of the folks watching Slava's Snowshow aloft.