Circus Noir

Another festival, another Spiegeltent. If anything, the whole 'tent' phenomenon is becoming famously predictable, all of which poses a problem for people like Chelsea McGuffin. Fortunately for her and the creative collective behind the wildly successful cabaret circus hit, Cantina, tent fatigue has not yet set in.

“I think that performances inside Spiegeltents have become flavour of the month,” McGuffin notes. “There are a lot of shows, particularly circus/cabaret shows, but Cantina is trying to take that cabaret form and take it somewhere different. We've really tried to find the new in the old.”

Indeed, since its Brisbane Festival debut in 2010, Cantina has played to ecstatic responses, including a five-month run in London that had critics falling over themselves in the search for new superlatives. Arriving in Hyde Park for their Sydney Festival stint, the five performers who make up the darkly different circus noir that is Cantina are clearly in buoyant moods and, as co-director Chelsea McGuffin attests, audiences can expect to be surprised. “You kinda go on a journey that is sorta completely unexplainable,” she laughs.

If she's being mysterious, she soon gives a hint of the show's overall arc. “It starts very much like a circus; it's fun and light and then it takes a bit of twist,” she teases. “It's almost like you get to meet the five characters backstage, or you could be in a bar with them. You start seeing what goes inside some of the relationships that you see in the acts. But then, the show twists back again and we're all having a good time.”

Much has been made of Cantina's venture into erotic darkness and McGuffin is pleased to oblige. “There are some really beautiful moments but also some moments that might be a little challenging.”

With its smorgasbord of tightrope, aerials, contortion, live music and roller skates, Cantina is very much an 'all-in' kind of show. “It's really based in that late-'20s, early-'30s era and part of that era is that you did everything. Y'know, you performed, you made your own music, your wife or husband was in the show and it was all part of a big family.”

Originally trained in dance, Chelsea McGuffin's flight to the circus was driven by a seven-year apprenticeship with renowned vaudevillian Cletus Ball, who was once part of a touring acrobatic act in the late 1940s called Toss The Girl, which involved exactly that: two guys throwing a girl around. As she was busy learning the raw physical skills she realised that she was also gaining insight into something more significant. “This was more than just learning skills and an act; it was about learning history and passing on a whole lot of knowledge.”

As with all true circuses, Cantina pivots on the thrill of risk. “There's definitely a real physical danger,” McGuffin confirms, “and particularly in an environment like Spiegeltent, where we're pushing our limits with what we can achieve on a very small stage and with a very close audience. There's every chance it could go wrong and the theatrical tension that you can find inside that is so interesting.”

Despite being an OH&S nightmare, Cantina continues to get the tick of approval from punters and press alike. Sydney Festival patrons need only be ready for something a little more risky than the usual tent antics.

WHAT: Cantina
WHEN & WHERE: Tuesday 8 January to Sunday 27, The Famous Spiegeltent, Sydney Festival NSW