Recklinghäuser Zeitung (D)

31 May 1999

The tight-rope walking Plumes bounce and skip along in time

The Ruhr Festival: The Cirque Plume receive a lively and enthusiastic welcome for their show "Mélanges"

Tina Brambrink

Hell-for-leather and squeaking away a bicycle swoops into the big-top, a broom-handle becomes a gymnastics bar, a musician takes to the air on a double-bass, a Plume dances in cadenced steps along the tight-rope. The Cirque Plume is back and suddenly anything is possible. The boundaries between theatre, dance and circus fade away. For all of a hundred minutes, pleasure does somersaults beneath the big-top raised on the Auguste Victoria site in Marl

Until the 13th June, the artistes of Bernard Kudlak’s French company are performing the première of their international show " Mélanges – opéra plume " at the Ruhr Festival. In everything you hear being said about the show, this time it is above all its poetry that holds the spectators spellbound.

A badly beruffled and dishevelled angel has lost his way and glides around the top of the big-top, like a leitmotif throughout the non-stop mixture of acts involving clowns, acrobats and live-music.
Tableau after tableau, the fantastic company invades the stage revealing unexpected qualities : a discordant choir of women turns out to be a talented trio of wind instruments, the astonishing cleaning lady stretches provocatively in a banderol, even the irritating sound of a cellular phone ringing suddenly becomes an harmonious melody. Everyone excels in his art, and they all perform without the traditional drum-roll to get spectators to hold their breath. No laborious feats of strength here, but fantastic shadow play with balls and dreamlike pantomime, with feathers and scarves continually calling to mind new ideas and associations. Tableau after tableau, the genres mix. To the rhythm of a song rendered a capella, balls dance on a shiny bald head; the juggling number with bowler hats is a swishing pas de deux full of erotic tension; the acrobats mix with the musicians in a whirlwind of wild swirling. With finely timed choreographies, the company’s fourteen performers take over the stage. The angel builds bridges between the characters, between the different genres. A musical pot-pourri brings together the rhythms of rock and the tango, Yiddish songs and songs written by Robert Miny underlie the playlets that speak of love, of power and peaceful cohabitation. A distinctive style underlines the pleasantries, weaves the poetic plot, and accompanies the rowdy comedy. Although some details need to be perfected, you would like to have a thousand eyes so as not to miss the slightest curiosity in the show " Mélanges ".
The outbreak of applause at the end of the show seems to want to go on and on. The big-top shakes with it.