http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/Cirque+Soleil+moonwalks+into+town/6326812/story.html
MONTREAL - Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour is back in town, having played Charlotte, N.C., and
Milwaukee, Wis., last week. In Charlotte, the tour marked its 100th show.
This bombastic tribute to the Jackson boy who refused to grow up premiered here last October, to mixed reviews, then headed out on its North American tour while still struggling with technical glitches. Since then it has played to more than 700,00 spectators in 35 cities, including Las Vegas, where a second, permanent Michael Jackson Cirque is to be launched next year.
Now, according to the show’s publicist, Maxime Charbonneau, and its artistic director, Tara Young, Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour is a leaner, smoother show – that the Cirque doesn’t want scrutinized a second time by Montreal critics. (No Montreal media has been invited this time, not even this writer, who has been following the Cirque for more than 25 years. For a company that still has tickets to sell for its long-advertised three-day Montreal run, this is unusual protocol.)
When I spoke to Charbonneau in North Carolina last week, he was gearing up for this next relocation. Performers and staff usually travel by chartered plane, he explained, while the rest of the production team travel (and sleep) on the buses (from Charlotte to Milwaukee was a 16-hour haul and from there to Montreal was about the same). It now takes 35 trucks to move the show, plus eight buses. When you add the number of drivers to the full time cast and crew of 175, that means it takes more than 220 people to bring what’s now the largest touring show in North America, from one city to the next.
“This rock ’n’ roll pace is quite something,” Charbonneau said. (He was due to arrive in Montreal, along with the cast, at about 3 a.m. Sunday morning.)
Reported cancellations of performances during the tour (in Oregon, for example) were caused by adjustments regarding travel time, Charbonneau explained. Now, the takedown time of the show has been reduced to about 3.5 hours and the load-in and set-up only takes about 11 and a half hours.
To simplify things, the set has been scaled down and some lighting apparatus eliminated, allowing them to cut back by six trucks (having started out with 41).
One thing that has been cut was the top of the giant “Giving Tree,” designed by Mark Fisher, for technical and safety reasons. It has been replaced by a screen projection of same. And the Michael Jackson child puppet created by Michael Curry, which initially soared over the audience in a basket to the poignant tune of Have You Seen My Childhood?, has been temporarily grounded. The weight of it made controlling the flight of the basket too difficult.
As for the music, one song has been cut (Gone Too Soon), and at least one other shortened (Ben, the rat song, to about 40 seconds from two and a half minutes).
Charbonneau, who has been with the company for five years, said he has never seen such a culturally diverse audience at a Cirque show. A large number of them are Jackson fans, who are highly enthusiastic. Then there are the Cirque fans, whom, he admitted, often say they’d prefer more acrobatics and circus numbers.
Young, 43, a former Albertan who once worked with Garth Drabinsky on his Broadway shows, is the woman in charge of it all.
“It was my role to oversee all the changes,” she said, “And to maintain the artistic integrity of the show.”
Listening to her team was important, she said.
“When you hire good people, they’re the ones who let you know.”
After 25 years of working Broadway shows, she sees this gig as an opportunity of a lifetime.
“It’s not only an honour to work on Michael Jackson’s material. But I get to work with musicians who worked with him for 20 years.”
Nothing is simple about this mega-spectacle, on the technical side. But after travelling about 80,000 kilometres together on the road, “We have grown tighter and stronger as a unit and our vision has grown much clearer,” she said, adding that the show “is tighter, cleaner, the focus is better.” It now runs two hours, including a 20- minute intermission.
This week, $5 of any ticket purchased for this show, or several other Cirque touring shows or any of the Vegas shows, will go to the One Drop charitable foundation.
The MJ Immortal World Tour’s European tour will begin Oct. 13 in London, at the 02 Arena where Jackson planned to launch his final This Is It tour.
Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour plays Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the Bell Centre. It will be returning to Montreal July 6-7. Tickets $68.50 to $196.50. Quebec City dates, March
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