Snowtime like now
‘Slava’s Snowshow’ is frosty summer fun.
“Slava’s Snowshow” is a little showwith big effects.
Billed as a “theatrical experience,” the mime clown spectacle, in Miami for a two-week run at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, is so large that much of the cavernous Ziff Ballet Opera House, in one of many ta-da moments, is swept up in a blizzard of snow simulating confetti. But the show, created and staged by Russian entertainer Slava Polunin, is also small, some might say scant, in its storytelling.
That’s almost theway it was when “Snowshow” last played the Arsht Center four years ago, and before that in 2008. But the 2013 production seemed to have more of a narrative thread. This time the vignettes, equal in awe, hung loose, somewhat independent of one another.
This made little difference with children in the audience, whowere enthralled for the entire 90-minute show (plus a 20-minute intermission). Families should note that while this winterwonderland is mostly kid-friendly, the show does have some tragicomic moments that might be disturbing for children 8 or younger.
To give you some idea of what to expect, this is howthe first act went. Keep in mind that these scenes are filled with mischievous comedy bits that are hard to convey beyond this basic outline:
8:09 p.m. The house lights dim and a clown makes tiny stutter-steps across the stage, occasionally yanking on a rope attached to something unseen offstage. He loops the end of the rope to make a noose and seems to contemplate putting it around his neck. There’s a chorus of “no” from the audience, and one “yes.” Thinking better of it, the clown gives the rope one last tug and another clown pops, with a flurry of confetti, onto the stage holding the other end.
8:20 p.m. A tsunami of bubbles is blown fromthe back of the stage into the the orchestra level. Onstage, a clown carrying a butterfly net appears overwhelmed. He is flanked by two other clowns playing teeny, tiny accordions.
8:24 p.m. A huge bubble with yet another clown trapped inside rolls from upstage to downstage.
8:27 p.m. The stage lights dim, and a glowing orb ascends toward the rafters. Three clowns, raggedy beings in big overcoats and hats with flaps like beagle ears, appear in a makeshift boat (a broom is the mast). They mime a sketch in which their boat is overwhelmed by a large ship. A clown wearing a shark fin rolls by and gets uproarious laughter.
8:29 p.m. The “shark” stands and takes a bow.
8:34 p.m. A clown pierced with arrows like Saint Sebastian staggers onstage, stumbles into the audience, steals awoman’s purse, clambers back onstage and exits.
8:38 p.m. An archer appears. He brings on a broom and stepladder in order to reach some cobwebs. He starts bringing them down, and the spiderweb curtain expands and expands, eventually spreading— with the help of ushers— the entire orchestra level. The children in the audience, and a remarkable number of adults, go nuts.
Don’t try to tease out some sort of meaning. But it is all engrossing, pulling you into something that might have come out of a David Lynch/Tim Burton reimagining of Marcel Marceau.