After being pleased with Cirque du Soliel's Mystere, I made the mistake of letting my winnings ride, and I bet on another Cirque show: \"Zumanity.\" A show written for, and apparently by, confused hormonal eighth-graders. \n\nA friend of mine has a favorite saying when he goes to strip clubs: \"Let's not spoil it with words.\" (Anyone who has attempted to have a conversation with a stripper knows EXACTLY what he means.) Well, someone should have given that advice to whomever conceived of Zumanity. I haven't seen such brainless, low-brow attempts at sexual humor and dialogue since I was in junior high school. Zumanity makes the \"American Pie\" movies seem like works of Shakespeare. \n\nThe M.C. of Zumanity is some over-acted Dr. Frankenfurter-esque drag queen, who was given to some awful, trite little lines like, \"Isn't making love beautiful?\" like he was addressing a gathering of 17th century Calvinists who need convincing that sexual pleasure will not land them a place in eternal damnation. (This audience paid good money to see topless women trapeze through the air. You can safely skip the lecture.) The whole show was just an awkward mish-mash of, on one hand, graceful and suggestive acrobatic performances, and the other hand, crass and overt sexual humor. They need to pick a direction and stick with it; just trying slap them together is a trainwreck. If you're trying to lube us all up for a post-show hotel room fuck session, then why have a confrontational old drag-queen up there making everyone's skin crawl. The mass tightening of sphincters was nearly audible every time he/she made direct eye contact with the audience. I'm not exactly a prude...I managed to sit through an entire ice-skating performance of Johnny Weir in a lace corset without writing my Congressman...but I was short-stack of dimes for the entire 90 minutes of this so-called erotica. Even the obligatory orgy scene at the finale failed to register on the trusty ole' Bone-o-Meter. (Yes, the Bone-o-Meter makes a cameo!)\n\nThere were a few redemptive moments, when the incredible athletes took the spotlight and did their thing. There was a stunning trapeze act with a guy swinging by one foot over the audience (without a net), an aerial-bound female orgasm (this one definitely got my attention), and other mildly clever performances involving a pearly white ribbons (hint, hint!) and a cage match between male rivals. But there wasn't enough of these acrobatic performances to save the show. It's like they ran dry after a few good ideas, and then just filled up the rest of the time with dick jokes.
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