A BIG FLOP FOR CIRQUE’S BIG TOP AT SEA
‘ I WANTED TO SMACK ONE’
MONTREAL • The Cirque du Soleil, accustomed to winning over critics and audiences with its cutting-edge shows, has encountered a crowd immune to its charms: the shuffleboard set.
A joint venture between the Montrealbased Cirque and Celebrity Cruises, announced with great hype last year, has been put in dry-dock after disappointing passengers on the two Cirque-themed luxury ships.
“Every guest is different. I guess their expectations just weren’t met,” Celebrity Cruises spokeswoman Lyan Sierra- Caro said yesterday. The cruise line says it is in discussions with the Cirque “ to develop a new evolution of the onboard entertainment experience.” Ms. Sierra-Caro said a timeline has not been set for a return of the Cirque to the high seas.
It is a rare setback for the Cirque du Soleil, which has entertained more than 50 million people in 90 cities since its creation in 1984.
When the partnership was announced in June, 2004, executives from the two companies promised to provide an environment inviting guests “to cross through the mirror to another universe.”
The Cirque would provide surreal characters to greet passengers in a lounge, which was named the Bar at the Edge of the Earth. There would be Pez Erizo, “a large, round being” who would wander the ship “seeking to delight all who cross his path. The Lantern Tuner would illuminate dark places and The Wave Correspondent would deliver “ mystical messages from the sea” to select passengers in the lounge
Judging from comments posted by passengers on the Internet, however, most were reluctant to make the leap to the new universe.
“Cirque de Soleil: ‘ characters’ were irritating and bogus ‘ambience.’ I wanted to smack the one that blew a whistle in my face just for effect,” one passenger wrote on the web site cruisecritic.com following a Caribbean voyage. “ My friend wanted to smack the one that gave her the ‘gift’ of a ‘poem’ and no clue what to do with it,” the passenger continued in an apparent reference to The Wave Correspondent.
“ My expectations were high that I was going to have the magic of Cirque, along with the excellence of Celebrity. I thought, how could we go wrong,” another passenger wrote. “Well, I have to honestly say, it was not that great. ... We heard a lot of people complaining on how bad it was.”
Renée- Claude Menard, a spokeswoman for Cirque du Soleil, said passengers were expecting a traditional show of acrobatics from the Cirque performers. “ We have to conclude it was not for them,” she said. “The attitude on a cruise ship is very different. Patrons of a cruise line lead a very organized life. They would sit there and expect a show, because that’s what you do on a cruise line.”
She said the Cirque is in discussions with Celebrity to provide a more traditional on-board show, within the confines of a ship. The Bar at the Edge of the Earth will remain, she said, but Pez Erizo and the others have been eliminated.
“ We believe that it’s a great bar,” she said. “Was it in the right place at the right time? Maybe not.”
Kenneth Wong, a marketing professor at Queen’s University, said a setback like the cruise-ship venture is to be expected for a creative company like Cirque du Soleil.
“It’s a very difficult business to be in because you’re not really an act.
“You are trying to be a broader experience, and when you start to think about a product in those kinds of abstract terms, something that is beyond just three hours sitting in a chair, you do have to test the tangible frontiers of those boundaries from time to time,” he said.
He said the flop will not have the same resonance as it would have had it been a show under the big top. “ This doesn’t really damage the brand.
“It was just one of those things they tried, it didn’t work, and if anything they had the good sense to pull the plug earlier rather than later,” he said.