THEATRE REVIEW: iD
4 Oct'10

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 4 out of 5

It's a place where Toronto entertainment history has been made for half a century, and while it remains to be seen if people will still be humming the tunes from Cirque Eloize's thrilling production of iD the way many still do the tunes from CAMELOT, Toronto's old O'Keefe Centre and its new Sony Centre came together Friday to launch themselves and this city rather impressively into a collective future. After two years of renovations, restorations and retro-fitting, the doors opened wide Friday night to welcome an audience into the brand new Sony Centre, made over, both for good and ill, from the abandoned bones of the old O'Keefe Centre, which had, 50 years ago to the moment, opened its doors with a Broadway-bound production of CAMELOT.

This time out, the show is iD, the latest from the creative minds and supple bodies that comprise Cirque Eloize -- yet another Montreal-based organization determined to break out of the hide-bound carcass of the circus world into a new age. Which means, of course, that they have much in common with another, possibly better-known Montreal company. But rest assured, while Eloize features many of the same kinds of acts of physical prowess and derring-do currently on offer up the road at the Canon Theatre (where Cirque du Soleil's BANANA SHPEEL is still playing), there is a world of difference between the two shows.

For openers, there's not really a clown in sight as iD hits the stage of the Sony like the sound of rolling thunder, the audio bed created by Jacques Poulin-Denis, built firmly around the urban, hip-hop music of Jean-Phi Gonclaves and Alex McMahon and seemingly designed to showcase an impressive new sound system that is part of the retro-fit. And while director Jeannot Painchaud may not have unearthed much that is new under the circus sun, he's packaged it up in a much grittier package than audiences attuned to the sparkling Cirque cycle might have come to expect. Unless, of course, they were lucky enough to catch Eloize's NOMADE -- AT NIGHT, THE SKY IS ENDLESS when it played Toronto earlier in the decade.

But where NOMADE seemed to be driven by a sensuous, simmering sexuality, iD is driven by a youthful exuberance and strut, firmly tied to a youth culture that no doubt knows little and cares less about the relationship between id and ego, but understands the whole business of searching for identity in physical prowess and it is that, one suspects, that gives this show its name. What's more, Painchaud and his team are constantly at pains to showcase not just their performers' acrobatic skills, but their personalities as well, lending an aura of playful wit, for instance, to the impressive contortionist skills displayed by Leilan Franco and a hit of incendiary testosterone to the aerial strap work of Hugo Ouellet-Coté.

But while this is an impressive cast, where iD shines brightest is in the extraordinary use of Alexis Laurence's and Robert Massicotte's video creations, projected on Massicotte's sets, and seamlessly fused with the lighting design of Nicholas Descoteaux. In their hands, iD unfolds on an ever-changing urban landscape that, at its best, leaves their audience breathless with wonder at the possibilities of modern-day video trompe l'oeil.

It is a show that, frankly, demands a more intimate space than the still-sprawling confines of this hall to be fully appreciated, but even if you are not lucky enough to be seated close enough to savour the full physical exuberance and splendour of this talented cast, iD is a show that will likely leave you breathless.