Paramour

"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.'" Full Review

"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." Full Review

"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." Full Review

"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." Full Review

"'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." Full Review

"'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." Full Review

"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." Full Review

"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.'" Full Review

"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." Full Review

"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." Full Review

"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." Full Review

"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." Full Review

"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.” Full Review

“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." Full Review

"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." Full Review

"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." Full Review

"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." Full Review

“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.” Full Review

"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." Full Review

“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.” Full Review

"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." Full Review

"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." Full Review

"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." Full Review

“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.” Full Review

"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." Full Review