Cheap Seats vs Best Seats/"Wintuk" Cirque du Soleil's Winter Tale

It is my philosophy when it comes to musical theatre, ballet and opera, quantity as well as quality is important. If you can't afford the top tickets or even the medium priced tickets, then by all means purchase the cheapest tickets. It is actually better to sit further back for many shows because you get a broader view of the stage. I often get the $10/5 pound tickets for ballet because to be honest, ballet is better viewed further back. And how many times have I purchased top price tickets only to have to crane my neck and move from side to side to see because the person in front of me is very large. It hurts when you've paid $120/60 pounds for the ticket, but at $10/5 pounds you just make the best of it.

Case in point is "Wintuk" Cirque du Soleil's Winter Tale. My husband surprised me with tickets for it for Christmas. The top tickets were $200/100 pounds which is just too pricey. So he purchased the medium priced tickets and they were just fine but the cheapest tickets would have been okay too. It's such a magical, mystical, wondrous theatre experience that you get lost in it and don't think about where you're sitting.

If you've never seen a Cirque du Soleil production because you were scared away by the prices, reconsider next time you have the opportunity. It is like no other theatre experience you have ever seen. It is a circus in that there is a lot going on at one time and there are performers who can do things the human body was not created to be able to do. To me, they all have the flavor of a 50's/60's Italian movie. Very Fellini-ish. But they are so much more. They all take you on a journey with a story and a message. And each one is different. The last one we saw "Delirium" was more of a concert experience with music the driving force. The story was of a man looking for balance in an out of sync world. It was the first Cirque du Soleil production that added lyrics to the original and remixed music. It was quite wonderful and I must admit sitting in the front row was pretty special. We felt as though they were performing for us. And after the show they did come off the stage and shake our hands. (They must have known I was destined for radio stardom.) But in sitting in the front we were unable to see the two IMAX screens which were an integral part of the show.

Wintuk is very different. It still has the circus acts and the European sensibility but this one, unlike the others, is geared towards families. There is something for everyone. From puppet lampposts who sing, sway and bat their eyelashes, whimsical shaggy dogs the size of small elephants to the astounding acrobats who perform with street performer mentality and the 20 foot ice monsters. The story is simple, a boy in search of snow. The set is a street scene with clothes drying on the line and trash cans abounding with hills and a curved embankment in the background on which skaters and skateboarders slalom, flip and fly back and forth from one to the other. The clothes line is an important part of the scenery. When the snowless blizzard comes the clothes blow in a frenzy, and then there is the man in search of his pants who must walk the slack wire of the line to get to them. With the help of the dogs, a young man afraid of his shadow, the Shadow girl (a sweet ballerina who appears from a shadow) and a homeless female shaman, the boy, Jamie, attempts to bring snow to his wintry home. They are transported to the mystical northern land of Wintuk where the locals are in conflict with the ice monsters for trying to keep the snow from falling. It is the man afraid of his shadow who finds his strength and fends off the monsters. And the snows come. The boy and his entourage are transported home on the back of a giant crane to find the people rejoicing on the snowy street.

I believe the cheapest seats were $30/15 pounds. Definitely worth giving up a couple of double lattes for.