Paramour NYC Reviews and Tickets

"Simultaneously frenetic and tedious…The athletic circus acts that are laced throughout the show provide the real entertainment, and make the surrounding book scenes and songs feel even more bogus and synthetic…There’s no denying the breathtaking magic of seeing bodies swim through the air with such apparent weightlessness. Too bad the musical surrounding them feels just as weightless, and far more forgettable."
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“A desperately mediocre (if extravagant) song-and-dance affair tricked out with specialty acts that are far more engaging than the dopey romantic triangle meant to hold our attention...The real fun (and beauty) happens when the hokey dialogue ends and the artists get to show their wares...You leave wishing the creative team had hired proven talents from real Broadway musicals or else, like shrewd moviemakers, left half of the material on the cutting-room floor.”
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“A bizarre mutant entertainment bred from the worst traits of Vegas circus shows and Broadway musicals. If you love either of those things, you’ll hate this...A series of clichés about humanoids accompanied by sounds...The daring acts are performed with evident skill. For Cirque fans there are too few of them. For the rest of us, the problem is that with only one exception they have nothing to do with the ‘narrative.’”
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“They seem to have gone out of their way to produce as banal and generic a musical as possible. Featuring atrocious dialogue and forgettable songs, it feels more like a parody than the real thing...The show does have some imaginative, thrilling sequences...But no matter how many times the action spills out over the stage and into the auditorium, it's not enough to draw you into the mess.”
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"For most of 'Paramour,' you’re treated to a middling melodrama with some strong singing and many feats of stagecraft. What you don’t get, remarkably enough, are very many over-the-top displays of physical derring-do…The story makes no sense, the singing and dancing is delightful, and the acrobats are impressive but rarely amazing…The musical is trying to be many things at once, and it doesn’t fully succeed at any of them."
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"The show has a book (corny), a score of show tunes (mindless), and a cast of singing and dancing actors...More happily, it also has those aerialists, acrobats, jugglers, and tumblers we love—and plenty of spectacle...On occasion, smart connections are made between the stage acts and the movie romance...A jaw-dropping high-wire act performed by the phenomenal twin aerialists is more authentically beautiful and sensually alluring than any of the claptrap going on below.”
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"Alas, only the circus acts soar, sometimes literally, as the show’s musical and film elements play, at best, dutiful and uninspired parts…The lyrics are frequently lost in mushy diction and unreliable amplification, which is sometimes just as well for rhymes like 'poet' with 'know it.'...Of course, Indigo will still live on the silver screen, even if—as the star of 'Paramour'—that screen is lackluster and only occasionally brightened by the odd tumble or flying act."
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"'Paramour' ain’t 'My Fair Lady' but the multitude of bodies leaping, jumping, zigzagging and flying through the air like a rocking constellation of awesome Great Santinis are jaw-droppingly great, making the cost justifiable, even when the labored attempt to follow every production number with a feeble story line does not...If your demands are not high and you don’t try to make too much sense of the wobbly so-called 'plot,' there’s a lot of skill on view here that is fun to watch."
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"This is the show with which the Montreal-based global franchise plants its standard on Broadway, promising—and, in spades, delivering—a mashup of '42nd Street' backstage romance, non-stop 'Ziegfeld Follies' and Cirque’s brand of acrobatic arts. It’s as eye-popping as Christmas at Radio City, if not quite as intimate or touching...Audiences may wonder why that annoying story kept stopping the action dead in its computer-assisted tracks...We’ve come for the visuals."
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“Rather than play up what it does best — eye-popping stunts and trippy visuals tied together by a loose concept — Cirque went for a Franken-show made up of misshapen parts: circus, dance, musical numbers, interactive projections...The first act is tantalizingly close to working, especially if you can blank out the godawful dialogue...The second act devolves into an incoherent mess topped off by an interminable rooftop chase involving trampolines.”
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"Cirque du Soleil’s first-ever Broadway spectacle boasts high-flying aerialists and acrobatic flippers — but the show still flops...Disposable songs, a schizophrenic tone and nonsensical scenes don't help matters. This hapless hybrid of Cirque and the Great White Way does something unexpected: it makes you want to run away and not join the circus."
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“A middling, mindless diversion that awkwardly combines circus feats with elements of traditional musical theater...Cheesy dialogue and forgettable new songs are thrown in...All things considered, ‘Paramour’ is a lame, harmless alternative for international tourists who want to see a Broadway show but would prefer something with the Cirque du Soleil imprimatur than a long-running hit like ‘Chicago,’ ‘The Lion King’ or ‘The Phantom of the Opera.’ Frankly, I think they can do better.”
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"Cirque du Soleil delivers a show that is acrobatic, operatic, and completely entertaining. This is musical theater as an extreme sport...This highly stimulating barrage of talent is undeniably entertaining. When it comes to telling a story, however, it's deadly...'Paramour' was written and designed specifically with the intention of using circus performance to tell a new story, and occasionally, it succeeds in doing just that, to thrilling effect."
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"It's more like the idea of a book, an un-fleshed-out concept with lines that sound like placeholders…The songs often sound like they were translated from another language without a grammar check…When 'Paramour' gets down to what Cirque du Soleil does best, it becomes an entertaining show…It may verge on being a shambles, but the acts are genuinely thrilling…It's certainly possible to have a good time at 'Paramour' -- as long as you know what you're getting into."
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“A piece that excites only intermittently as a circus attraction and never as a theatre piece...Many second-rate movies or plays goes at least this deep and, sadly, many go deeper...Yes, the show fails where it counts most. But it's gotten everything else right. The music is lush, brassy, and sumptuously evocative of period excess...The show could not look better...Some substance is ultimately required, but there's nothing to be found beneath ‘Paramour's’ bewitching surface.”
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"Philippe Decouflé hasn’t managed to make the plotline gel into a sensible, dramatic whole, but he certainly keeps the pace up with the help of the lighting designs of Patrice Besombes and Howell Binkley, the projections of Olivier Simola and Christophe Waksmann and Pierre Masse’s rigging and acrobatic equipment which had to be carefully—and safely—integrated into the scenery."
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"While there's a story as well as the acrobatics for which Cirque du Soleil is known and show-enhancing video and film elements, that story falls way short of being captivating. And the dazzling visuals not only upstage that story but often seem more wedged in than smoothly interwoven...Given the money spent to bring 'Paramour' to Broadway and the talent behind the scenes and on stage, one can't help wishing they'd come up with something less derivative and, alas, dull."
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"'Paramour' is a thinly disguised excuse to put these gymnasts/dancers on the stage. Noted. The story is a combination of every old plot you can shake a stick at...Indeed there seems to have been a bit of overthinking with this story. This is unfortunate because everyone on that stage is bringing their 'A' game–and they are a formidable collection of talent...Is 'Paramour' brilliant? Not quite. Did I have a great time – you betcha."
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“There are moments of theatrical electricity, such as a meticulously choreographed filmstrip sequence...Edit ‘Paramour’ down to 90 minutes and plop it in Las Vegas and you very well might have a hit...But market something as 'a love story, not only for the sense of profound human emotion, but also for the love of art,' as Decouflé states in the program notes, and you’re setting up an expectation that ‘Paramour’ can’t deliver.”
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"Though 'Paramour' features some spectacular circus acts, there’s something ludicrous about its efforts to marry them to what’s supposed to be a traditional Broadway musical...Indeed, every scene or song is accompanied by specialty acts or special effects that range from the peerless to pointless...All the dexterous derring-do acts not just as a distraction from the dopey dialogue, uninspired lyrics and largely generic music, but as pretty much the only good reason to see this show."
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“Fitfully thrilling and consistently baffling...A work this extravagantly misguided generates its own excitement. The mind can’t rest as it struggles to make sense of a woman warbling the title song as a man balances an umbrella on his head...If ‘Paramour’ has all the elements of a traditional Broadway tuner, they are jumbled together in so topsy-turvy a fashion as to achieve a perverse originality, a three-ring circus of artistic muddle, miscalculation and mayhem. And zombies.”
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"'Paramour' is most successful when it just chucks the plot entirely…By the second act, the three very uncharismatic leads and their generic tunes have definitely worn out their welcome…Wonderful is a chase across Manhattan rooftops. It’s most wonderful because the three leads are now gone completely...The number puts much needed bounce back into 'Paramour'...'Paramour’ features one of the most outlandishly awful big musical numbers ever. Yes, ever!"
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"The directorial credo of 'Paramour' appears to be more is better. Scenes are overstuffed with competition for our attention, perhaps in order to distract from a thin book and bland/utilitarian songs, few of whose lyrics are intelligible...For anyone particularly interested in the medium, however, the show is a must on the basis of both imagination and technical expertise...All in all a spectacle the sum of whose parts are not larger than the whole."
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“Nothing more than a tissue-thin excuse to trot out the various acrobatic routines for which the Canadian troupe is famous. If you go looking for clever dialogue or memorable songs, you won’t find them. However, if you come in expecting spectacular circus-themed joy, it’s here in abundance...With so many stagers involved, it’s no wonder the production is confusing...Fortunately there is enough high-flying pizzazz to make the overall show worth enough 'ahhhs' to justify your time."
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"Awesome acrobatics and first-rate Vegas/Busby Berkeley visuals are not anything Cirque needs to prove...As a musical, alas, the awkward story is a Golden-Age Hollywood cliché, the choreography is generic and the serviceable music dips lavishly into retro-bombastic influences...The book is dull padding between the wows...We have to wait until someone has a dream ballet or A.J. has a nightmare in order for the creators to justify the marvelous physical virtuosity."
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“The trappings that signify this is company’s attempt to present a Broadway-style musical - the forgettable songs, canned dialogue, an alternately cliché and cockamamie plot - are disproportionately amateur to both the physical feats on display and the scale of one of Broadway’s biggest theatres...More unfortunately, the story becomes a distraction from the incredible physical talent otherwise on display — and a hindrance to the troupe’s ability to really wow audiences.”
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"Though the show’s book and songs are hardly revolutionary, they are not meant to be, but are intended to revisit a bygone era...While Broadway purists might find the book, music, and lyrics somewhat lacking in originality, nostalgia buffs will delight in their references to the Silver Screen and enjoy the evocation of a past era in entertainment, and Cirque du Soleil fans will surely love the experimental blend, enhanced spectacle, and outright fun that is 'Paramour.'"
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"The production is a bumpy, swerving ride. It begins with an assault on the senses, with vast musical routines...If the goal is disorientation, the numbers succeed splendidly...The tone of the story, which has groaningly awful dialogue, veers uncertainly between broad satire and semi-seriousness...'Paramour' gives the sense of being created by a group, with everyone tossing in something."
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"In between the predictable plot lines, the $25 million production offers inventive stage acts...Most of the visual elements...are dazzling. Director-conceiver Philippe Decoufle keeps the action flowing, and every now and then, the stage performances and the romance connect...The twist, and the downside, is the story itself, which is banal. That doesn’t mean the show isn’t entertaining—or the leads don’t deliver. Just that as Broadway musicals go, it’s more Las Vegas than Great White Way."
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"A hybrid musical combining a conspicuously familiar plot with a series of genuinely thrilling athletic sequences…'Paramour' goes heavy on the company’s signature stunt sequences to our relief, because there isn’t much to be extracted from the often eye-glazing book and score…Kushnier makes the most of his cliché-ridden role, exuding confidence and hubris as needed. Lewis has a beautiful voice and gamely follows the worn path laid out ahead."
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"You can scoff at the hoary plot, clunky lyrics and preponderance of pulsing music, but 'Paramour' delivers a feast of glitzy entertainment...It’s the circus arts that provide the big thrills, executed by a gasp-inducing ensemble...Despite their often feeble nature, the musical theatre accoutrements succeed in giving context to the circus acts, making them stand out more sharply than when presented simply as a parade of skills against some vague theme, as in the other Cirque shows."
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"The use of dramatic tension to accentuate the acrobatics is too rare. Instead, 'Paramour' confuses the filler with the substance, and we are left wondering why the world’s most famous circus would undervalue its greatest asset."
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"Can a show be kinetically exciting yet dullishly cliched? Yes, that show is 'Paramour'…It refuses to plumb insight into the filmmaking process, instead reveling in tropes older than the Barnum & Bailey circus tent...The show does best when it drops the pretense of a story and simply goes for the pizzazz…'Paramour' is so good and so bad, but it provides bang for your buck…Don’t think! Just enjoy the stunts and splashiness and kindly ignore the rest."
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"Cirque du Soleil is a unique experience into itself. To box it into a musical format is foolish, for the show to be truly engaging has to soar and be free of any restrictions...My advice to you if you decide to go to 'Paramour' and want to enjoy it to its fullest is this...don't take it seriously, don’t try to make sense of the show; you’ll just give yourself a headache. Just relax, go with the flow, and enjoy the madcap, zany camp spectacle known as Cirque du Soleil’s 'Paramour.'"
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“The stage dynamics, choreographed with jaw-dropping synchronicity, are so dizzying, non-stop and complicated, the hackneyed simplicity of plot is a blessed relief...The opening number is so startling in its busyness it’s discombobulating, but when ‘Paramour’ legitimately melds acrobatics with plot, song and dance, it flies high...An astonishing spectacle of acrobatic and gymnastic virtuosity, most often exhausting, sometimes exhilarating.”
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"Sometimes overstuffed and awkward but it always finds its footing when it highlights its soaring, rubber-bodied stars…Unlike other Cirque shows, this one does a really fine job of integrating the acrobats into the narrative…It's thrilling stuff…It's got a cliche-ridden, lumbering plot and dialogue that veers from leaden German operatic to kiddie jokes…A lot of 'Paramour' looks like too many cooks were tossing in ingredients…When the show works, it works."
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“Atrocious and incompetent effort now being offered by Cirque du Soleil. It shows that this troupe knows nothing about Broadway musicals...Beware, Cirque fans! If in the past you’ve loved to ‘Ooooh!’ and ‘Ahhhh!’ at the many wondrous stunts enacted by gymnasts and acrobats, you’ll be using your vocal cords far less frequently. About a third of the show is devoted to pyrotechnic feats...The other two-thirds of the show is a musical. It stinks.”
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"The creators of 'Paramour' don’t seem to have given a lot of thought as to what larger meaning these admittedly impressive acts should have in the larger narrative of the show...The randomness of most of the circus acts might be a bit more forgivable if the words and music surrounding them showed a bit more craft. However, the songs and the dialogue are unremittingly bland. With all of its financial resources, is this really the best script and score that Cirque could come up with?"
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"The thrills are still there, superb, dazzling, deliciously chilling in their daring and artistry but the attempt at a dramatic story is a klunker no matter how gorgeously dressed and cleverly staged…Turkey, 'Paramour' is not. There’s too much good, even extraordinary, in the show, almost all of it their specialties that have made them the greatest circus of humans in the world."
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"They made a big mistake by trying to think they are a musical and not an acrobatic delight...Not only that but they produced a new show with the sappiest story ever...It’s really second rate but interspersed in the silly story are, of course, the wonderful acrobatic sequences...As the show slogs on we wind up with a wild chase scene over rooftops with mattresses to land on that seem to have springs in them...Right after that the show just ends. Weirdest end of any show I ever saw."
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"The music and dialogue are not up to Broadway standards. You come to 'Paramour' for the great fun in watching the high-flying acts and gymnastic ability of the actors. The show is a lot of fun and definitely one your children will love and find entertaining."
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"No team of show doctors could cure this bafflingly bad show…Rather than stories and song augmenting their signature mix of circus tricks and otherworldly aesthetic, however, the tepid tunes, pointless plot and insipid characters here put even their best routines in a third-rate context. There may be a few exciting sequences in this show but the talented performers keep being undercut by cringe-worthy dialogue and lyrics. Jaws should be dropping; instead, eyes roll."
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"A lavish, spellbinding, and at times, preposterous feat...While the acrobatics are the reason this show can be so awe-inspiring, they are also the reason it fails as a Broadway musical—the circus arts typically steal the show, leaving us a bit disappointed when the plot took center stage again...The first part made us hold our breath with contortion, aerial acts, and the majority of the singing numbers while the second act left more to be desired and felt a bit more uneven."
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