The Air Canada Centre will be a sea of blue this month, but it will have nothing to do with hockey (phew) and everything to do with the distant, some say fictional, world of Pandora.
Cirque du Soleil’s production Toruk, inspired by James Cameron’s Avatar, opens on Jan. 7 after premiering in Montreal last month. And there are two Torontonians in prominent roles.
Oakville native and dancer Jeremiah Hughes plays the role of Ralu, and veteran stage actor Raymond O’Neill plays the Storyteller.
Hughes, who started dance at the Canadian Dance Company and studied at Toronto’s Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts, lives in Las Vegas and has worked with Cirque du Soleil in the past including their Viva Elvis show.
For O’Neill, who has spent more time at Stratford performing Shakespeare in front of hundreds rather than thousands, it has been a bit more of an adjustment. But one he says he’s relishing.
“For me, it is such an interesting gig as a theatre actor primarily,” he says, on the phone just days before the team heads to Montreal to prepare for the show’s world premiere. “That’s part of the thrill, for me, getting back onstage and adjusting to this very different medium.”
O’Neill, who attended St. Michael’s Choir School in Toronto, first joined the Stratford Festival in 1972, fresh out of theatre school, and spent many years in the country’s top theatre festival before heading to New York City.
Unlike previous Cirque shows, Toruk has a greater emphasis on a tight storyline as well as narration — O’Neill’s job.
“My character is an elder statesman of sorts,” he explains. “And when he tells his story, very dramatic things happen. The risks are large and the adventure is large.”
Toruk will be familiar to fans of the blockbuster movie, but the story is actually set thousands of years before the events depicted in Avatar.
The show features projections that seem to reach right out into the audience. The projectable surface is five times the size of a standard IMAX screen, at approximately 20,000 square feet. The are 115 costumes in the show, and according to both Hughes and O’Neill, it’s a bit tricky, and there is generally a couple hours prep time before each show.
Hughes plays Ralu, a big brother character, skilled hunter and leader, member of the Omaticaya Clan.
“This is just totally different,” he says of Toruk in comparison to other Cirque shows. “I’ve been a part of some pretty large-scale, act-driven shows, but it is just amazing to be in something so diversely and widely skilled — everyone can do everything pretty amazingly.”
Hughes took up dance when he was 11 and hit the dance floor with some seriously reckless abandon at a wedding. Before long, he was at the Canadian Dance Academy — familiar to fans of the popular dance show The Next Step.
Although he’s performed in countless shows, Hughes is looking forward to his first opportunity to perform at home, in a venue he remembers more for hockey games as a kid than anything else.
“I’ve been back to Toronto a bunch of times but never as a performer,” he says. “And at the ACC? It’s awesome. I’m geeking out over here.”
Toruk runs Jan. 7 to 10.
