Review: Circus Oz - BARELY CONTAINED

The latest show from Melbourne’s Circus Oz serves up a dizzying banquet of clowning, juggling, slapstick and acrobatics that delights and excites in equal measure.

A mix of old and new performers – including the outstanding Emma J Hawkins, a remarkable all-rounder who stands just over one metre tall – and the fresh eye of co-director Derek Ives, coupled with the vision of Artistic Director Mike Finch and the skills of the company’s existing troupe, ensure Barely Contained is a remarkably fresh show that belies the company’s age.

Founded in December 1977, with its first performance season in March 1978, Circus Oz helped spearhead the new circus movement, which abandoned animal acts in order to celebrate and showcase human physicality in all its forms. In the 31 years since its inception Circus Oz has toured to 26 countries on five continents; and indeed, its latest show will shortly leave Melbourne to embark on a national tour, travelling as far north as Port Macquarie and as far south as Hobart.

Thanks in part to a ‘Circus Lab’ at the company’s Port Melbourne headquarters earlier this year, Barely Contained is bursting with new tricks, and new takes on existing acts.

Plate-spinning, juggling, tap-dancing, trapeze and hula-hooping are performed with verve and vigour, while the company’s signature act – the entire ensemble riding around the ring on a single bicycle – is playfully acknowledged in a routine performed by strongwoman Mel Fyfe, who singlehandedly lifts an eclectic array of performers, seated on a single beam, off the ground.

Fyfe is very much at the heart of the show – her bed-of-nails act in the second act especially – but it is her partnership with Emma J Hawkins which truly dazzles. Together, the strongwoman and the diminutive performer, actress, dancer and singer are a remarkable double-act; a situation which clearly requires a significant degree of trust between the two women given their radically different sizes.

Hawkins’ stilt-walking routine, which satirizes the traditional image of the ballerina, is one of the show’s most memorable scenes, and simultaneously subverts stereotypes around traditional notions of beauty and femininity – a Circus Oz tradition which is very much alive and kicking in Barely Contained.

A flirtatious double-act involving a pile of chairs precariously balanced atop bottles is another highlight of the show, as is a clever Salvation Army-style sight gag, and a remarkably simple-seeming yet hilarious piece of clowning involving being stuck in a seatless chair.

An accomplished trio of musicians – newcomer Shannon Barnett, sound designer Carl Polke and musical director Chris Lewis – provide the exuberant soundtrack for this splendid show, which, true to its title, threatens to burst out of the ring at any moment, such is the verve with which it is performed.

BARELY CONTAINED TOUR DATES

July
Melbourne, under the Big Top, Birrarung Marr, until July 12

August
Port Macquarie, Glass House, August 13 – 16
Launceston, Theatre North, August 21 – 22
Hobart, Theatre Royal, August 27 – 29

September
Mildura, Mildura Arts Centre, September 2
Griffith, Griffith Regional Theatre, September 5
Brisbane, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, September 9 – 13
Penrith, Q Theatre, September 17 – 19
Bathurst, Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre, September 25 – 26

October
Orange, Orange Civic Theatre, October 2 – 3
Canberra, Canberra Theatre, October 7 – 11