Cirque du Soleil's 'Varekai' thrilling, but only sometimes

'Varekai" may mean

wherever

in the language of the Hungarian Romani, but the success of Cirque du Soleil's visually enthralling (if not athletically thrilling) show originated in a singular imagination: that of costume designer Eiko Ishioka.

More than any other element of Varekai, Ishioka's more than 130 Lycra-based bodysuits create a world of human/plant/animal hybrids that engage the eyes and command attention.

Stalks sprout from spines on woodland creatures; tendrils undulate like underwater anemones on the limbs of sea-dwellers; bodies burst with volcanic colors topped with hair that stands straight like obsidian thrust from a mountainside. In Ishioka's costumes, the 50 performers slither and writhe, bound and pounce across the elevations and skywalks of Stéphane Roy's stage.

Director-writer Dominic Champagne fleshes out this landscape with the Greek myth of Icarus (Mark Halasi), beginning the evening of his fall after he flies too close to the sun. The villagers hold aloft his wings, and the remainder of the show consists of attempts to get him back to the sky through balloons, trapeze, aerial ropes, and hoists.

Here, Varekai thrills, but only in moments. A quartet of Russian acrobats use their legs as springs, catapulting one another skyward in flips and twists. Two lava-painted aerialists flicker back and forth across the Wells Fargo Center's wide expanse on a pair of bands.

Two singers (Craig Jennings and Isabelle Dansereau-Corradi) front a seven-piece live band that performs klezmerlike songs (think accordions and strings) in a variety of languages, giving Varekai more the feel of a dance-theater piece than that of an athletic dazzlement, as in some of Cirque's other shows.

Unfortunately, Varekai never lets you forget it's a circus. A pair of clowns (Stephen Bishop and Gabrielle Argento) tease the audience, perform magic, and chase a spotlight across the stage. They amuse and annoy and intrude just at that moment when all the elements of Varekai begin to fuse into something spellbinding.

The singular aesthetic in Ishioka's costumes does not bleed into the entire production. The world her vision creates feels like early-morning dreams interrupted by the snooze button, then rejoined. We enter her world of visual delight, the magicians jolt us from it, we embrace the dreamworld again, and look for it, wherever and whenever it may be.

Through Sunday at the Wells Fargo Center, 3601 S. Broad St.

Tickets: $45 to $100.

Information: 1-800-298-4200, cirquedusoleil.com/varekai. EndText