If you’re going to Cirque du Soleil’s new Christmas show “Twas the Night Before” at the Fox Theatre, be prepared to lower your expectations for high-flying thrills and wacky stunts. This show is a more intimate, almost Broadway-like event, but it still retains the fun, quirkiness, and high-energy performances you know and love.
Cirque du Soleil has been an Atlanta holiday event for years, setting up its big top at Atlantic Station for the Christmas season. In true circus fashion, these shows have given audiences jaw-dropping high-wire acts, acrobats somersaulting through the air, and a very loose storyline that’s often open to interpretation. “Twas the Night Before” is a more modest show thanks to the size of the Fox stage.
This show is based on the classic poem “A Visit From Saint Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore first published 1823, but is firmly set in the modern day with its use of techno, pop and rap interpretations of classic Christmas carols.
The story opens on Christmas Eve with bratty Isabella doing TikTok dances and immersed in music on her headphones. When her loving dad brings her Christmas gift – a shiny new bike – and plans for the annual reading of the aforementioned poem, Isabella rebuffs him.
As a snowstorm rages outside, Isabella is suddenly whisked from her bedroom into another dimension by what are later revealed to be Santa’s mischievous elves. Isabella is mostly a spectator to the goings-on – a juggler who might be Santa in disguise, “Xanadu”-style roller skating, sugar plum fairies dancing and tumbling over a table, a spoiled starlet using a hotel luggage cart for an impressive high-wire act, and a goddess-type who swings over the stage suspended only by her hair.
Probably the most impressive spectacle of the night is the four puffer-jacket-clad performers who use neon-hued diabolos – spinning tops on wire – to create a whirl of lights across the stage and into the audience. The juggling and skill of these performers was something to see. Two audience members were picked and they became part of the act as well, with the diabolos spinning around them.
While all this is happening, Isabella’s sad father is also seen wandering this strange world looking for his daughter. He finally gets his “moment” with an acrobatic high-wire using a lamp.
Isabella – now infused with the Christmas spirit after seeing all the spectacle – reunites with her dad and finally gets her Cirque moment to shine. She hops aboard the bicycle her father gave her and the balancing stunts she’s able to do is another big highlight of the show.
But we’re not quite done yet as the juggler finally reveals himself as St. Nick while his reindeer – a troop of hoop divers – fly across the stage through an increasingly tall stack of gold rings. There were several mishaps during this part at the Tuesday media preview, but when they did make it through the audience roared. You can’t help but be impressed watching the acrobats propel themselves 10 feet into the air and clear the hoop.
Honestly, I enjoyed “Twas the Night Before” more than I expected to after reading some other reviews online. It gave me a boost of holiday cheer and it was just 90 minutes of fun. Go see it!
And if you miss the big tent, don’t worry. Cirque du Soleil has already announced they’ll be back at Atlantic Station next November and December with “Luzia: A Waking Dream of Mexico.”
Tickets to “Twas the Night Before,” which continues through Dec. 15, are available here.
