Cirque du Slaque
Captain Smartypants Under the Big Top
Capitol Hill Arts Center
1621 12th Avenue, Seattle
June 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 2008
7:30 pm
Join us for happy hour in the CHAC Lounge starting at 6:00 pm.
Tickets: $ 25 at the door — subject to availability
"The circus is coming to town!"
This phrase conjures up immediate images: marching bands, clowns, poodles, peanuts, acrobats, feats of strength:
a glamorous and garish parade. But just below this sheen there lies a dark and disturbing underbelly:
animals and people in cages, surly clowns, cruel ringmasters, unwashed and unprincipled carnies:
a dark and dangerous parade. Perhaps it is this balance of overly bright and frighteningly dark that has so captured the
American imagination. Who can resist such statements as “death-defying acts” and “Greatest Show on Earth?”
We eat it up like so much cotton candy.
For, as PT Barnum famously said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
The circus has been the subject of dozens, if not hundreds, of movies. Charlie Chaplin, The Marx Brothers, Fellini,
Cecil B. DeMille, Ingmar Bergman, and Disney all splashed the flashy Big Top
on the silver screen.
And there are the darker versions, too, such as Freaks, The Elephant Man, and Berserk!
(in which Joan Crawford turns the melodrama knob up to 10, breaks it off, and throws
it away.)
And let’s not forget Pennywise, Shakes, or Homey the clown; or the instant classic
Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
With the advent of kitsch gay icons Siegfried and Roy, and Cirque du Soleil’s magical reinvention of the circus
(animal-free, and with clowns that manage somehow to not creep us out) we have a rich stockpot of imagery, songs, feats,
legends, and dreams from which to feast.
And Cirque du Slaque is a feast indeed. The members of Captain Smartypants delight in creating new personae for themselves, as audiences who saw Trousers of Terror and PowerPants! will recall. Cirque du Slaque introduces us to Candy the Suicidal Clown, Barbella the Strong Bearded Lady, The World’s Shortest Tall Man, Dragoslav the Magnificent, and Charlotte, a spoiled little girl who is left behind at the circus and must learn to fend for herself.
Songs in Cirque du Slaque run the gamut from ridiculous to sublime and beyond. Captain Smartypants will be putting their own stamp on Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?” and Dead Can Dance’s “The Carnival is Over” as well as songs by Emerson Lake and Palmer, Stephen Schwartz, and a whole passel of classical composers. Original songs by Eric Lane Barnes will take on the daily circus we commonly mistake for our media, the art of onomatopoeia, delicious and disgusting candies, and why no one loves clowns.
Since circus, vaudeville, and burlesque all shared many of the same entertaining circuits, it seems fitting that Captain Smartypants will be joined by two prominent burlesque entertainers. Verotica143 has taken the local scene by storm with her erotic mime - a highly charged depiction of sexual compulsion and control. And Sydni Devereux will strut her kittenish wares as she reinvents moments that recall Gyspy Rose Lee, Marilyn Monroe, and Sophie Tucker.
While CHAC is an all-ages theater, we recommend Cirque du Slaque for mature audiences only - breasts and bottoms will be bared.
