Inside Cirque Du Soleil’s trademark blue-and-yellow big top, a stream of dusty golden light fills the tent, like so many metallic birds flitting above our heads. It seems the perfect setting for this Quebec-based nouveau cirque’s foray into the Victorian age, in a production engagingly titled Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities. Written and directed by Michel Laprise, the show on Randall’s Island retrofits modernity with a captivating, old-age charm. The effect is transportive; the assorted delights of fishlike contortionists, aerialists and a hugely entertaining live band, prove just enough to take the audience on a trip well worth remembering.
Feathered Enemies
The Birds, Conor McPherson’s creepy new play, is derived neither from Aristophanes nor Alfred Hitchcock. It does, however, share DNA with the 1963 film because both draw from a short story by Daphne du Maurier. (Hitchcock also used du Maurier novels as source material for Jamaica Inn and his Oscar-winning Rebecca.) Don’t expect to find real birds or even simulated ones in the pocket drama at 59E59 Theaters. Fans of the movie won’t find a pompous female ornithologist with environmental concerns or a schoolteacher with her eyes pecked out either.