We saw Aurelia's Oratorio with friends at the American Repertory Theater on Saturday night, August 1. Aurelia is Aurielia Theriee Chaplain, the daughter of Victoria Theriee Chaplain (the creator and director of the show) and a granddaughter of Charley Chaplain. Jaime Martinez is the other lead performer in the show.
We saw imaginative circus acts, mime, puppetry, acrobatics, dancing, illusion, and magic. I was mesmerized. Aurelia and Jaime perform acrobatic stories, sometimes together, but mostly as individuals. In the opening sequence, she appears and disappears from inside a chest of drawers. A little later, she struggles with a scarf, the scarf grows and becomes as long as one of those vines that Tarzan used to swing through the jungle with, and she lifts herself into the air, ten or twenty feet above the stage, twirling, tying and untying, play-acting at creating a hammock and falling asleep, struggling to stay aloft as the entire set shakes as if it was hit by an earthquake.
Any slip and she could fall to her death.
Aurelia is beautiful. She races around with a kind of breathless energy, as if she cannot ever rest, or ever get enough satisfaction out of life. She seemed to be less about grace than about furious activity.
Jaime is graceful and powerful. He danced and moved like a ballet dancer, even when performing those improbable stunts, like walking up a wall as if it were level ground.
What was it all about, the skits, the little comic reversals and pratfalls? I found myself a little annoyed in the early part of the 70 minute show, wondering whether there was an overall story. Were they lovers in an elaborate apache dance? Were they people constantly struggling against absurdity?
I didn't care after a while. We just enjoyed the show, and the pleasure of watching the circus.
Louise Kennedy gave the show a good review in The Boston Globe, and I can't disagree with her.
