Performing Arts Review: ECHO by Cirque du Soleil

Cirque du Soleil ECHO

Writer and Director: Mukhtar Omar Sharif Mukhtar
Creation Director: Chantal Tremblay
Original Idea; Set and Props Designer: Es Devlin
Production Director: Serge Côté

May 24, 2026: Under the Big Top, Old Port of Montreal, Quebec

Last week while visiting Montreal, I enjoyed the opportunity to see the Cirque du Soleil performance Echo under a big top on the St. Lawrence River waterfront. The show centers around a giant Cube that moves around the stage, serves as a screen for remarkable projections, and a various times is taken apart by the performers to reveal new surprises before being rebuilt by the end of the show. The central character is FUTURE (Louana Seclet-Monchot), a young woman who like Alice and Clara before her explores a fanciful world and it’s unique and talented beings. FUTURE is accompanied by her faithful companion Ewai “the Dog” (Philippe Dupuis) who is also a skilled juggler.  A pair of clowns known as Double Trouble (Clément Malin and Thomas Gaskin) tie together the various pieces of the show with a lot of crowd interaction and their specialty of balancing large stacks of cardboard boxes (a whole lot more interesting than it sounds!).

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There’s a whole story in the program about how this show explores our connection with nature and animals and “how our actions can shape the world around us.”  But for me it was mostly a series of acts the fed my childlike sense of wonder and whimsy.  Acts include performers dressed as paper animals performing a vertical ballet along the sides of the Cube, the Fireflies (Alma Danira Quintanar and Penelope Elena Scheidler) who performed acrobatics while suspended by their hair, acrobatics dancing around flying poles, and a finale on a triple set of teeterboards.  FUTURE also does a lovely performance on the Washington trapeze, where she balances on her head while suspended high within the big top.  A live band and vocalists accompany the entire performance.

I first saw Cirque du Soleil way back in 1991 when they performed Nouvelle Expérience under a big top in Battery Park in New York City.  I loved that performance with the new twists on circus arts, the amazing things that humans could do with their bodies, and the fact that they did not include animals in their performance.  I always wanted to see Cirque du Soleil again but time and circumstances prevented me until this visit to their home base in Montreal.  The circus has grown into a huge company with residencies at several prominent tourist destinations.  But I still feel that the show is grounded in exploring possibility and wonder with a team of creative artists.  Hopefully, I will not wait 35 years to see them again.

ECHO continues in Montreal through August 16, 2026 and then will make three stops on a tour in Mexico later in the year.

 

#Acrobatics #Ballet #CirqueDuSoleil #Contortionist #Juggling #PerformingArtsReviews #Slackwire #Teeterboards #Trapeze

Theater Review: Wonder: The Musical at American Repertory Theater

Wonder

Book by Sarah Ruhl
Music and Lyrics by A Great Big World (Ian Axel & Chad King)
Based on the novel “Wonder” by R.J. Palacio and the Lionsgate and Mandeville film Wonder
Music Supervision by Nadia DiGiallonardo
Choreography by Katie Spelman
Directed by Taibi Magar

January 14, 2026: Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cast

Mr. Tushman – Melvin Abston
Jack – Donovan Louis Bazemore
Justin – Diego Cordova
Via – Kaylin Hedges
Summer – Kylie MiRae Kuioka
Mr. Browne – Raymond J. Lee
Julian – Reese Lvvine
Isable – Alison Luff
Charlotte – Skylar Matthews
Augie – Garret McNally (Note: McNally rotates with Max Voehl in this role)
Nate – Javier Muñoz
Miranda – Paravi
Moon Boy – Nathan Salstone
Ms. Petosa, Mrs. Albans – Pearl Sun
Amos – Nicholas Trupia
Ensemble – Ryan Behan, Maddy Le

Based on the novel by R.J. Palacio and its movie adaptation, Wonder is a story about Auggie, a boy with a facial difference due to Treacher Collins syndrome. Auggie is home-schooled throughout his childhood to accommodate his frequent surgeries, but entering 7th grade his parents enroll him in a nearby private school.  The show follows Auggie through his first year of middle school as he experiences bullying at the hands of children (and their parents!) but also forms his first friendship with a boy named Jack. The large cast includes several characters whose lives intersect with Auggie’s with the biggest subplot for his older sister Via. With the attention focused on Auggie, Via feels overlooked which proves especially challenging in this school year when her best friend Miranda mysteriously stops talking to her.

This production has a strong cast with Garret McNally taking the lead as Auggie on the night of this performance.  I was particularly impressed with Donovan Louis Bazemore, Kaylin Hedges, Alison Luff, and Skylar Matthews. The set is well-designed with a pixelated them resembling Minecraft and a rotating stage that allows smooth transitions between scenes. Which leads us with the songs and the plot.

This show has a lot of musical numbers and I think the composing duo of Ian Axel & Chad King could work on paring down the songs and focusing on making a few great ones.  It seems like every character comes out to sing a solo or duet about their life which makes the show feel choppy and episodic.  It also overshadows the main character Auggie who does not have a big musical number. There’s a character called Moon Boy – a man in a spacesuit – who is something like Auggie’s imaginary friend or inner courage, who appears periodically and sings a few numbers.  But Moon Boy feels like an awkward addition to the story and fails to center Auggie in the narrative.

I’ve read that the original book and movie (which I haven’t read or watched) have been criticized by disability activists as “inspiration porn.”  Unfortunately, the musical has an after-school special feel to it where Auggie is merely an inspiration to everyone around him rather than exploring his experience and interior life.  The message of the show is “Be Kind,” – something I agree with – but in the year 2026 of times it feels insufficient to just say it.  This is disappointing because as I said this is an excellent cast and I feel they’re working hard to try to make something great with weak material. This review from the New England Theater Geek has more on why Wonder doesn’t quite succeed.

You can judge for yourself if I’m being too harsh on this new musical, which continues at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge through February 15.

#AmericanRepertoryTheater #Musicals #PerformingArtsReviews #Theater #TheaterReviews #WonderTheMusical