A tissue box was quickly produced as Michel Laprise, the writer-director of Cirque du Soleil's newest spectacle, began to choke up. The unexpected display of emotion came from recalling how he gained the trust of acrobatic acts of varied backgrounds, nationalities, and temperaments before being recruited for Kurios �" Cabinet of Curiosities. A previous Cirque director had talked about the challenge of prying loose from these performers the sense of ownership over their acts so they could be integrated into an overall vision, and the topic began the detour into tears.
"I want to show you something," Laprise said, grabbing a magazine with a full-page photo of Roman and Lena Tereshchenko, a married Ukrainian couple who are fiercely engaged with the camera, and who perform what is known as the Russian Cradle routine. "See this guy, the drama he has, he learned it in the process of this show," Laprise said as he ran his hand across the glossy page. "And his wife, when we started, was always looking down at the floor, so I wrote a scene where she would have the lead, so this is new in their lives and you can see it in them. How do you reinvent with them? First you have to love them."
The word "reinvention" comes up several times as Laprise, a native of Quebec City, talks about Kurios, pitching its Grand Chapiteau near AT&T Park beginning Nov. 14. "This is Cirque's 30th year, and I've seen a lot of our stuff, and we need to reinvent ourselves," he said. "So this is not a project for me. This is a mission."
Kurios, which premiered in Cirque's hometown of Montreal last spring, breaks from the amorphous fantasy worlds of many previous Cirque shows. It is rooted in an inventor's laboratory at the turn of the 20th century, in the golden age of invention. "It was also the golden age of illusionism," Laprise said, "because people would go see a show and they would see a woman levitate and say maybe it is possible, because last week I heard an orchestra in that thing they call the gramophone."
The central character in Kurios has built a machine that can give life to inanimate objects, and that opens a world of creative possibilities in the world according to Cirque. "Steampunk" is a word that has often been used to describe the look and feel of the show, and Laprise surprised his design collaborators when he explained how he wanted that spirit to be invoked.
"The show is super low-tech," he said. "At Cirque, we have a lot of material means, but I said I don't want it to be about that. It's crazy, yes, but I want to put the imagination in front. There's technology, but it's not technology that says, 'Oh, I'm technological.' It's hidden."
Laprise has been with Cirque for 14 years, first working in casting before moving into the company's special-events division, where he created spectacles for such disparate clients as Madonna, Fiat Motors, Microsoft, and the Montreal Outgames. "I was crazily committed, and after I did the big show for Quebec City's 400th anniversary, they said, 'Okay, now you're ready.'" Kurios is Laprise's first full-scale show for Cirque, and he is the first director who has risen up through the company's ranks.
This gave him a home-field advantage, something that directors hired for single shows don't have. "I knew this world, and I was stubborn. When someone would tell me it's not possible, I'd say I don't want to hear that. In the bike act, I said don't build a big steel bike. I want a real bike because it's more authentic, but it was harder for the performer because she goes aerial and then like a trapeze, and spinning and stuff. They were new movements, so you have to try and fail and do it again. Her body was covered in bruises, but now the scene is so beautiful, and she's so comfortable in the air."
Laprise talked about several more of the aerial and acrobatic acts, returning to the notion of the careful handling these artists need to pull them into the world he has imagined for them. "For a lot of outside directors, it takes a year to understand the reality and psychology of acrobats, because it's not like a Broadway singer or dancer who will say, 'Okay, where do I come in?' You don't work like that with acrobats, because in their world we are the handicapped people."
Laprise is, in fact, married to a Cirque acrobat, Kevin Atherton, who, with his twin brother, is currently performing in one of Cirque's Las Vegas shows. They met through Cirque du Soleil 14 years ago, but Laprise said they are in the process of getting divorced. "It's okay," Laprise said. "I will always love him."
While he now loves Quebec City, as a nonconforming gay kid growing up there, he hated it. "In the 1960s and 70s, everybody was middle-class, white, Catholic, and bought the same pair of shoes at the same time. It was important for me to get out. I was like Madame Bovary."
Stage was the escape, taking him to Montreal, where he studied at the National Theatre School before becoming an actor, director, and artistic director of his own company. "My things were working well, but I wanted to do something different," Laprise said. "I arrived at Cirque and fell in love with the company."
In his first few months, he kept quiet about being gay. "The Russians and stuff," he said. "Many of our acts come from a more homophobic culture, but then they come to Cirque and they are in touch with gays and lesbians, and they say, 'Okay, fine.' Cirque is a very gay-friendly company, so we're good at bringing people together."
With Kurios up and running, Laprise has been told to take a breath. "But this week I started to work on two new things," he said. "I like to break the rules, and I say, 'Why should I breathe? No one has died.' But Kurios will be a hard act to follow."
Kurios �" Cabinet of Curiosities will run Nov. 14-Jan. 18 in the Grand Chapiteau adjacent to AT&T Park. Tickets are $53-$135. Call (800) 450-1480 or go to cirquedusoleil.com/kurios.