Most amazing friends, the performative version

[drwex]

Thanks to the last-minute intervention of Calliope we were able to go out and see Mischief in the Machine on Saturday night. Wow. What an amazing show and a tremendous accomplishment by all involved.

Coraline is keeping a record of posted public reviews here: http://coraline.livejournal.com/891841.html

There's not a lot I can say that hasn't been covered in other reviews, including the amusing stringing-together-of-nouns trying to describe ENSMB's musical stylings. It's 'dancing about architecture,' to some degree. There was a CD on sale at the show and you can probably still get a copy. To say it needs to be heard to be understood doesn't capture it, so picture the scene in my kitchen with two adults trying to explain to a five-year-old what "steampunk" and "Victorian" are - and realize you need a frame of reference to think about these things, and how a new things isn't quite the same but still relates to that frame.

Which leads me to the other thing I wanted to say about the show. People have compared this to Cirque du Soleil. That's understandable, as CdS is the best-known instance of circus-performative-story art. But at the same time, CdS is sort of the wrong way to think about this. The Soleil is the sun, and CdS features big voices, polished bright performances, and usually hidden instruments. Mischief was darker, and featured the band on stage at all times (even if they did duck/sit down now and then).

In searching for a catch-phrase for Mischief in the Machine the closest I could get was Cirque du Coeur - Circus of the Heart. Every person on that stage has a 'day job' and they're doing this out of love, a performance not for money or show values but for feeling and passion. (Don't quibble with me - I'm sure CdS's performers love what they do, but there's a wide gap between begging your friends to be ushers at the last minute and getting guaranteed Equity rates.)

I'm sure there are other practitioners of the Cirque du Coeur - nothing like this gets invented out of whole cloth - but when I think about the circus of the heart I will always think of the awesome production I saw this weekend and be so honored to know people on stage and behind the scenes who can pull something like this together.

Bravo!

(EDIT: I've stewed on this post for a while and I'm sure I'm not saying it right. I don't want to set up a this-bad/this-good dichotomy. Just that I feel there's something unique and different about what MitM presented that making certain analogies misses. It's more a this-good/that-good-but-different-good-than-this, if that makes any sense.)

Comments

[inahandbasket]

Cirque du Coeur is a very elegant way of expressing that, I got what you meant right away!
Thanks for the kind words!

[drwex]

Sure thing. I'd be pleased as punch if the phrase was deemed apt enough for you guys to use.

[inahandbasket]

That'd be up to the chillguru, but I think I'd get behind that. ^_^

[starphire.livejournal.com]

That's a great descriptive name.
I've seen something that would merit that name, at Burning Man last year. A painted gothic caravan parked next to the amazingly wonderful Steampunk Treehouse, turned out to be the stage for an "accordion apocalypse sideshow circus" performance one night, with 5 or so people in the troupe. Elaborate props, a well-rehearsed set of acts, intimacy with the audience which they mostly did not know, they were so obviously in love with what they were doing, and doing it as often as they could.

Mischief in the Machine was a grander tale, more skillfully done, more complicated. And I think it exceeded most people's expectations, certainly even mine (I was pretty optimistic).

Circuses should be unique, and I'm appreciating the reviews which suggest with fractions its similarities to other presentations, like CdS.