Created By: David Shiner ( writer ) , Serge Roy ( "director of creation" ) . At: The Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State. Tickets: 800-745-3000; $23-$300. Runs through: Jan. 3
More than 20 minutes that felt like 40 minutes into Banana Shpeel, we were still waiting for the show to get started. Or for a punchline to emerge. Or for anything, really, that indicated a production worthy of Cirque du Soleil's hitherto spectacular track record of artful spectacles.
We waited in vain. Instead of otherworldly beauty and fantastical technical brilliance, Banana Shpeel offers fart jokes. And those fart jokes are among the better of the supposedly comedic bits that weigh this show down like an elephant tethered to aerialist.
Just how bad is this attempt at vaudeville? "I'm going to impersonate an ordinary person with knee problems," says clown Claudio. Then, he proceeds to walk across the stage, intermittently saying "ouch." That's it, the whole joke. Granted it's supposed to be funny simply because it's so ridiculously stupid. But it's not funny. It's just ridiculously stupid. Like the worst parts of Shpeel, it is repeated over and over and over again, a dead horse pounded into glue before the night is over.
Shpeel is one of those shows that leave you smacking your forehead in disbelief. Millions of dollars went into the thing. ( The costume budget alone could probably cover our mortgage for a year. ) It was years in the making. The creative teamdirector/writer David Shiner, director of creation Serge Roy, Cirque founder Guy Laliberteis a veritable brain trust of proven artistry. How could a show with such vast resources turn out to be so mired in puerility and tedium? How is it possible that nobody realized the jokes were more rotten than month-old deviled eggs? The mind reels.
Problem one: The two vaguely, abrasively leprechanesque clowns who open the show by spending almost half an hour in front of the curtain pretending to improvise. Few things are more grating in live theater than the fake-improv. Here, the clowns "panic" when the mics "don't work." Much exaggeratedly frantic stage whispering ensues. There is "chaos." Eventually, the mics "start working" and the show "continues." It takes an uber-skilled comedian to make scripted improv look like real improv. The clowns in Shpeelwhose "improv" runs throughout the showsimply make it painfully tedious.
"Tedious" is the operative word for all the ( would-be ) comedic segments of Shpeel. A restaurant skit in labors for what seems like an eternity without so much as an amuse bouche. The magic act has none. The prominently placed tap numbers are stupendous because of Bruno Rafie's flashy lighting design and Dominique Lermieux's equally luminescent costumes. As for the dance itself? Marc Robin does better on his off days.
Shpeel works only during its few-and-far-between circus acts, although they feel like they've been shoehorned in from another show entirely. As for the rest? Ouch.