Continuing my exploration Vancouver’s summer theatre scene, last week I watched Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza and TUTS’ Singin’ in the Rain.

Kooza is the 2nd Cirque show I’ve seen, and like Corteo 2 years ago I was very impressed. Kooza is a return to the basics for Cirque, featuring traditional acts like trapeze, contortionists, and tumblers, but with the cirque’s flair for the dramatic. The acts that really stood out for me were the unicyclist, the Wheel of Death, and the clowns. It is amazing what the Cirque performers can do with their bodies, it almost doesn’t seem real. There were several times during the show that I thought the performers were screwing up on purpose to bring back some realism.

It’s been a great summer for Theatre Under the Stars outdoor stage at Malkin Bowl. The weather has been consistently sunny. I think it only rained one night in the past month, and that was Saturday night when we found ourselves watching Singin’ In the Rain (how fitting). I enjoyed Singin’ in the Rain, but it wasn’t nearly as good as Joseph. The songs were memorable and catchy (more so then Joseph) and the dancing was good, but it didn’t draw me in. The humour wasn’t there and there were several slow acting bits that really didn’t translate well from the film to the stage. That said, when we left we were singing several of the tunes as we biked off in the rain.