As we walk into the Opera House, we – my four and two year olds and I – encounter paired lines of school children making their way into the theatre. There is an excited hubbub of chatter as they file into the rows ready for the first of up to three shows they will see today.  

“Do you know what you are coming to see?” I ask a boy in front of me. “I think it’s a magic show,” he tells me. “The suitcases are going to disappear” – referring to the abandoned travel cases piled up on the otherwise empty stage. 

The lights dim and a lone clown enters: the ring-mistress maybe?  With a percussive bang of her staff, the performers begin their journey, transforming the set into a realm of imagination, using theatre magic and acrobatic wizardry.

There are cheers, wows and audible gasps from this young audience as the highly skilled Circa performers, whirl, leap, twist, roll, swing and body-contort every which-way to make the carnival animals cleverly emerge out of each person with figurative feathers, fur and fins.

The mix of circus tumbling, trapeze and clowning humour – illustrating the deep sea aquarium, break dancing elephants who in Ogden Nash’s words are ‘ equipped with handles at both ends’, juggling roosters, paper birds and the exhilarating rope jumping kangaroos (Skippy would be proud) – is magical to experience.

This production, created by director Yaron Lifschitz and a talented team including lighting designer Jason Organ and the black and white costuming by Libby McDonnell often producing a natural strobe effect, is a truly beautiful piece of interactive theatre.

The synergy of the performers and the physical storytelling coupled with the clever use of Michaela French’s video design connects the multimedia animations that are not only the back drop of our world habitat tour, but as props, and costume in a seamless segue between the screen and the animal characters. 

Sound designer/composer Quincy Grant masterfully weaves Camille Saint-Seans’ brilliantly written and familiar melodies with his own complementary 21^st century compositions. They ingeniously pay homage to every one of the original animals, and a couple more besides, with inspired modulations and orchestration nicely interspersed, with the performers providing their own troubadour-style accompaniment on such instruments as cajon, melodica, ukelele, guiro, whistle and didgeridoo. The recurring witty play on a six-note motif from the introduction of the ‘Carnival of the Animals Suite’ is a very useful connector theme.   

The audience cheers and joins in with the carnival finale (the upper-level children try to which causes a few panicked ‘sit downs’ from the adults and ushers) while the on-screen and live performers bring this fabulous show full circle, packing this magical tour back into the travel cases to a tidy finish.  

Verdict from the four year old: “All of it was my favourite”; from the two year old: “shark, kissing shark” and the catch phrase of the day from the school kids: “It was awesome!!!”

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