Who else is looking forward to Varekai?

Cirque is due to roll into our humble burg next month, and as my friends who know me know, no one is looking forward to it more than I. My enchantment with Cirque is baffling, I admit, but I just can't get enough of it. This despite the fact that is profoundly weird, really.

Bryan Curtis has a great article in Slate about Cirque's unexplainable popularity, which he discusses in the context of the lastest touring show, Varekai:

I arrived a few minutes late and found the stage occupied by a small goat-man with forest leaves protruding from his trousers and his hair gelled into a three-point salute. "Pfffft!" he said, to much laughter. A few moments later, an angel dressed in white descended from the heavens. The goat-man regarded the angel with mock fury until the angel rose and began to perform trapeze stunts with the aid of a hammock. This seemed to satisfy the goat-man and he departed at stage right. Then there were some earthbound stunts from a troupe of flame-colored acrobats; children dressed in puffy suits as if they were about to train attack dogs, performing with bolas; then empty-eyed ogres dressed as samurai warriors and rhythmically stomping their feet. That brought the first act to a close.

Varekai was so profoundly jarring, so uncertain in its narrative intentions, that when the lights came up nobody in the audience could think to move. At least at the end of similarly exotic occasions—like a Megadeth concert or a White House press conference—the crowd knows when to get up. A small boy sitting a few feet to my right and using a voice reserved for pre-adolescent terror turned to his mother and shrieked, "What's going on?" He spoke for all of us.

Curtis goes on to conclude that:

A great deal of Cirque du Soleil's magic comes from its unapologetic Frenchness. Or, if you prefer, its Quebecoisity. By this, I mean that Cirque du Soleil's shows make absolutely no sense at all. I studied the plot of Varekai for a solid hour before attending the performance, but by the end of the second act I was blubbering the same nonsense as the goat-man.

Well, I can't disagree with any of that. But still, I do love it so.