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Desir at Spiegelworld
Burlesque, nightclub lounge and traditional sideshow combine in this guilty pleasure
Desir (Photo: Joan Marcus)
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To walk into the tent at Spiegelworld is to be transported. As the audience waits for this year’s premiere production, Desir, to begin, an excited murmur fills the small space as the lights dim and spectacularly clad singer Maria Victoria Di Pace begins a slow sashay down one of the aisles, crooning in her husky, come-hither alto. Based on a turn of the 20th century Parisian nightclub, the 80-minute production follows an eclectic cast of characters through theatrical—and often erotic—adventures. (The first scene sets the tone when an innocent looking man sporting a childlike sailor costume is seduced by a group of ne’er–do–well women who systematically expose his façade with a hilarious, climactic twist.)
As infectious as the lustful atmosphere are the feats of human strength displayed on the tiny, theatre-in-the-round setting. Duo Scarlette, Quebecois acrobatic pair Annie-Kim Dery and Marieve Hemond, captivate the audience early on with an airborne pas de deux. The sultry closeness of their movements displays strength—at one point Dery hangs precariously from Hemond’s grasp as she sits on her hoop swing—and delicateness—even the most astounding movements are performed with an almost impossible softness. The male form is well represented too. Hand balancer Olaf Triebel, formerly of Cirque du Soleil, contorts his frame while balancing on nothing but a few wooden pegs, an arduous and impressive accomplishment seen by the audience from only a few feet away. Russian gymnastic troupe Evolution, comprised of teenagers Evgeny Belyaev, Nikolay Shaposhnikov, Anton Smirnov and Nikolay Titov, create a cartoon-like atmosphere with a human pyramid.
Burlesque and more traditional nightclub and sideshow acts have a home amidst all the lust as well. Performer Marawa the Amazing does a great Josephine Baker impression while spinning dozens of Hula-hoops, and non-human cast member Vladamira, a cat with a Parisian past, performs the hilarious “Cat on a Hot String in the Roof.”
But, after all, the name of the show is Desir, and the production’s glittering stained-glass windows combined with impeccably sculpted bodies and scintillating routines culminate in an evening that is filled with guilty pleasures.