BANANA SHPEEL - Warning: May Induce Vomiting

Never in my entire life have I been more turned-off by a performance than I was tonight!!! BANANA SHPEEL is just as terrible as the pre-opening word of mouth. In fact, its worse. (too bad, because the Opening Night Party at Roseland was insanely fun!)

I cannot believe something like this got the financing, green-light and name from Cirque du Soleil.... You know? That renowned and adored circus company celebrating its 25th Anniversary? Yeah, them. They should be appalled of what is representing their good name at the Beacon.

From the very first minute... no... second of this show, you are turned off. I am dead serious, the minute the lights go out and there is one sentence of dialogue (which I will get into later), there was a literal sinking into the seats by the audience: Oh gawd, what have I gotten myself into???

There is hardly any aspect of CIRCUS and HUMAN ENTERTAINMENT in this show. Instead, it is a messy disgusting sequin dancy loose TALKATIVE and unfunny production, stuffed with oddity, incongruency, and an attempt to have fun. Comes off like it was written by a team of 7th grade drama club kids and rehearsed for 3 hours.

Full of cursing (yeah seriously, they cuss... in a family show?). Bad and crass humor (lower than lowest-common-denominator). Lets just say the Act 1 closing number involved people running in and out of wooden boxes as a magic trick, singing to the ring-leader a song about not being a jerk, a dude in a leotard flexing his butt, a man dressed as a tiger trying to get your attention, another incredibly uncomfortable skinny long-haired dude thrusting his orange underwear at you, the ensemble dancing in glittery costumes with about as much energy as a moss-covered rock. Dont forget the guy juggling hats, a girl dropping a guitar from her feet, and two people doing hip-hop moves disguised as a balancing act. Senseless.

This show is currently on several papering sites, and not even selling-out on there! I cannot warn you enough... a disaster. If this is your FIRST Cirque experience, I am sorry. And if you are a HUGE Cirque fan, do yourself a favor and forget this one exists.

IN SHORT: I hated it. My tickets were comps and I still want my money back. Hop on the bus and go to Randalls Island to see OVO (which is terrific)!!!

Updated On: 5/22/10 at 12:59 AM

Maybe getting fired from this was the best thing that could have happened to Annaleigh Ashford and Michael Longoria.

adamgreer, I said the exact same thing when Michael and Annaleigh were fired, and that was based on the sneak peek i saw last year, with the original storyline that made no sense.

MiracleElixir, just stay at home and punch yourself in the face repeatedly. It gives you pretty much the same effect. I saw it a week or so ago (to a half empty house), and wanted to die. Literally. Die.

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After reading about the show, I skipped the production in Chicago. I usually try and make it to any Cirque du Soleil show I can, but I had a bad feeling about this one as soon as it was announced. I'm glad I missed it.

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"(too bad, because the Opening Night Party at Roseland was insanely fun!"

Cirque throws the best parties. I worked for them back in the 90's.

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Nope, it's playing right now in Toronto until the 10th.

I echo all of Eug's sentiments and am also a huge fan of CdS.

I saw it at one of the Men Event performances where they offered a cocktail party afterward around the corner. I ended up chatting up the MSG Entertainment PR guy who tried so desperately to back-pedal on it and say that Wintuk was meant for kids and this was meant for mature audiences. He did not seem to realize how long of a history I have with seeing Cirque shows and it really shows how clueless the company has become regarding what their target audiences want.

The only audience this was meant for is the trash bin.

Cirque is consistently embarrassing themselves of late with these shoddy, thrown-together shows they are simply creating to bring in some money.

I wouldn't say it was offensive in the conventional way, but more so that it sort of bastardized the idea of Cirque and their type of clowns which are more about clever foolery than crass humor.

The clowns were very rude to each other, characters were telling each other to shut up left and right and it all felt very mean-spirited while disguised in sequins and neon colors aesthetically speaking.

They may have been trying to capture the "New York attitude" but they were way off the mark.

It's definitely not the "so bad it's good" kind of thing. It's a show that tries soooooooooooooooooo hard to be hilarious and (of course) results in being boring, unfunny, and torture to sit through.