Maybe it was because I was one of the thousands who trekked out to Marymoor Park a few weeks ago, but I couldnt get Cirque du Soleils Corteo out of my head during LiveGirls! homage to the big top. For all Cirques gorgeous visual spectacle, their show revealed a definite thinness of plot. Sarah Hammonds Circus Tracks compensates for that, beckoning the audience through the glittery façade of a happy circus, weaving through the hidden heartbreaks and lingering regrets painted over nightly with stage makeup. In a series of vignettes (prone to unruly fast-forwarding and rewinding), the saddest show on earth repeatedly breaks its heart over an abandoned big-top baby, destined to become a terror in pigtails (Christine Longe), as she is tossed into a red-veil river, plucked from an orange tree, and kicked out of the suburbs by a lachrymose ghost. The show isnt all melancholy, though; the off-the-wall trapeze artist (Colin Connors) would probably have Cirque artists laughing into their sleeves. Hammonds script, a foray into magical realism, is a departure from the ironic humor Ive come to expect from Live Girls! Nevertheless, Circus Tracks deliciously pours all the dark, mysterious corners of a surreal circus production onto center stage. JENNA NAND 8 p.m. Fri., 4 & 8 p.m. Sat., plus 8 p.m. Mon., June 23. Ends June 28.
Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 4 & 8 p.m.; Mon., June 23, 8 p.m. Starts: June 6. Continues through June 28, 2008
