Why can't family entertainment shows grow up?

The return of two mega entertainment shows in Hong Kong and Macao in May should be good news for cultural tourism in these two cities and, by extension, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. One cannot help wonder though why the Canadian entertainment company Cirque du Soleil, whose last Hong Kong outing was in 2018, had to stage a repeat performance of Kooza, rather than, say, Kurios, K or Echo — shows that succeed in using jaw-dropping acrobatic acts and slapstick comedy to create a piece of engaging theater.

Similarly, the revival of House of Dancing Water (HODW) at its purpose-built theater in City of Dreams, in Cotai, Macao, after a five-year, pandemic-prompted hiatus, feels like a rehash of a tired old trope involving a malevolent queen and her scheming minister who is also the comic act. The two kidnap an Asian princess who possesses a powerful sword but can be rescued only by a Caucasian male hero.

Both Kooza and HODW are essentially showcases for hair-raising physical feats, and some of these, the handstand act, for example, are common to both, except that in the latter show, water is the real hero, or adversary, that the performers play against. The "stage" is a massive artificial water body equaling "five Olympic-sized pools". This water rises in waves, swirls, drowns performers, shoots jets into the air, gushes forth in rows and rows of fountains and comes down in sheets from the overhead ducts. Those in the ringside seats are handed out plastic sheets so as to not get soaked by the relentless splashing.

If you don't mind checking in your brain in the cloakroom and can accept that plots in such shows are just devices to string together demos of what the human body can achieve, Kooza and HODW are amazing pieces of escapist entertainment, created by some of the world's most competent professionals, both on and off stage. In a gesture not often seen in live shows, the huge backstage and underwater crew of HODW makes an appearance at curtain call.

Watching it live

From another perspective, however, Kooza and HODW confirm that the pull of live shows and communal viewing is anything but diminished. Indeed, the daring bike stunts in HODW or the Wheel of Death piece in Kooza — in which acrobats have to keep pace with a rapidly rotating giant wheel even as they perform stunts, inside, and on the surface, of its twin orbs — wouldn't be half as thrilling even on a home theater screen with surround sound.

While the two shows feature a few astounding solo acts — the chair balancing act in Kooza, the contortionist in HODW — essentially, each performer is a cog in the wheel. This is demonstrated quite literally in HODW when a group of performers suspended midair move in sync to suggest a rotating chandelier.

And the fact that the Kooza ensemble includes acrobats in their late 50s and early 60s — two of whom can cycle in tandem on a high wire while carrying a third standing upright on a chair balanced on a horizontal pole hoisted on their shoulders — demonstrates that being in a circus is perhaps a way of life from which performers never really retire.