"While the audience is still finding it's seats, the emcee (a Kramer-esque John
Gilkey) selects a victim from the crowd who is immediately whisked away by a
group of white-coveralled assistants to a backstage destination. When next we
see our missing audience member, moments later, he is also white-suited, and
following cues as to how to act from his captors, who are busy picking a new
victim out of the crowd. It's a brilliant case of using the audience as found
art, with additional built in "1984" -ish points about assimilaton and social
control. This is Cirque humour at it's best, spontaneous, surprising and
serious all at once."
- The Los Angeles Times
"Amazingly enough, Quidam's complicated tale is conveyed without words. The
ringmaster, John Gilkey, whose absurd hairdo is an example of minimalism at
it's absolute best, introduces both the audience and the young girl to this
world with a kind of pantomime that mixes strength, dance, acrobatics and
juggling. Charming and mysterious, he's an altogether different sort of
ringmaster, one who can do a lovely dance with a coat rack but is so utterly
naughty that you can't help but follow him into a surreal universe that lifts
images of bowler hats, umbrellas and floating burghers right out of a Magritte
painting."
- Houston Press
"...Cirque's series of astonishing performers, including the silent but very
funny emcee(John Gilkey), who at one point manages to dance with a hatrack a
la Fred Astaire while simultaneously juggling."
- The Dallas Morning News
"There's a clown, John Gilkey, who sets the tone. Even before the main show
begins this rubber-faced mime zero's in on an audience member, who is
ultimately kidnappped and carried off by a gaggle of performers in futuristic,
hooded white costumes.
Sporting an impudent coxscomb of hair, the wordless John not only introduces
the acts he often mimics them, reducing the audience to helpless laughter.
One of the best bits is when the tall, thin, pasty-white clown adorns himself
with fake chest hair and struts around mocking a beautifully muscled pair who
have just completed their act."
- Denver Post
"Fullest Theatrical Charms!"
- San Francisco Examiner
"John Gilkey... bounces through the most complicated routines
without once losing the individuality that makes it all an art."
- The New York Times
"Popular favorite... Ingratiating!"
- San Francisco Chronicle
"Marvelous!"
- SF Weekly
"Paramount... Imaginative... Energetic!"
- Minneapolis Star Tribune
"The show's most accomplished performer is unquestionably the juggling
clown, played by Pickle Family and Make*A*Circus veteran, John Gilkey.
With his consummately ridiculous appearance and his mastery of physical
comedy riffs... his dance/juggling routine with a coat rack, to cha-cha
music, was a classic bit of clown work and probably the show's highlight."
- San Francisco Examiner
