Circa: Duckpond review – Crowd-pleasing fun
Cute, clever and exhilarating, Circa’s take on Swan Lake sees the Australian acrobats play fairy tale games with a featherlight touch
.jpg)
Australian troupe Circa have form when it comes to applying circus to new genres. Past productions have included collaborations with opera companies and flirtations with baroque music. Here they put their spin on a ballet classic, mashing up Swan Lake with elements of The Ugly Duckling and a cute queer twist. Jethro Woodward’s score bounces around Tchaikovsky’s famous motifs, while Libby McDonnell’s lithe body stocking costumes are laced with fairy tale nods in the form of ruff tutus, crowns and monochrome wings. The acrobatics bring bold brushstroke action to the stage, replacing the ballet’s drawn-out scenes of courtly dancing with flips, somersaults and human-towers (one curious feature of seeing circus on a proscenium stage instead of a big top or black-box space is that the landing thuds are dulled, bringing a weightless, magical effect to the tumbling).
There are some awe-inspiring multi-cast balances, intricate confections of upside-down knotted bodies, and playful takes on ballet’s most beloved moments: the dance of the cygnets is replaced by a flipper-wearing, broom-wielding duck army. The trouble is, in a plot-slight piece such as Swan Lake, we really need some of the brushstrokes to go into creating characters we can root for. Here, the acrobatics don’t often feel designed to illuminate personalities but simply to create spectacular tricks.
The exception is with the black swan, where a kinky scene involving high heels and a semi-nude prince brings together storytelling, circus and character, using feats of bodily endurance to explore the darkness and pain of seduction. A coda to the main story teases ideas of stripping away stagecraft to peek behind the curtain, a theme that has been gently hinted at throughout with veils dropping at various points to silky, watery effect. But for the most part it’s Circa business as usual, and the story plays second fiddle to the acrobatics. Unlike the company’s Orpheus And Eurydice, where the acrobatics brought to life themes of a mind in chaos, Duckpond feels more like light-hearted crowd-pleasing fun.
Circa: Duckpond is touring the world until Sunday 10 January 2027.