During a performance of “Toruk,” the latest live show from entertainment-production giant Cirque du Soleil, the audience is enveloped in the world of Pandora as inspired by the James Cameron smash “Avatar.” Performers, puppets, projectors and an enormous theatrical set create the fanciful world, set in a time thousands of years before what takes place in the film.
Cirque du Soleil is bringing “Toruk: The First Flight” to U.S. Bank Arena May 4-8. Among the crew working on the touring production is Caitlin Madden, a carpenter who lives in Indian Hill when she’s not on the road with the show.
Having seen “Toruk” from an offstage vantage night after night, beginning last year with rehearsals, previews and the December premiere in Montreal through the current 2016 tour, Madden can provide a detailed – and maybe a bit biased – description to her potential hometown audiences about what they will see this week.
“You walk in the door, and you’re going to see nothing to begin with,” Madden says. “There’s a giant veil that we painstakingly put together every single day and make sure it looks nice, and that pulls away to reveal the world of Pandora, as in the James Cameron movie most people have seen.
“It’s this amazing, incredible almost jungle-istic world, and these projectors are able to transport you into that world, and you really kind of lose sight of where you are and what you’re doing, and you see these new animals, some that will be familiar from the movie and many that aren’t.
“The imagination of Cirque du Soleil is spectacular and just so amazing. They were able to create new parts of this world that James Cameron started. Together we’ve created even more and even larger parts of this world, some that you might see in future movies, some that you might only see in our world. You see different clans and how they interact with each other. You’re going to hear a new language.
“It’s the Na’vi language, which again is in the movie, but there you were able to have subtitles and things of that nature. In our situation we have a storyteller that gives you the story as the artists are performing it in front of you. That helps you enter into that world and brings you in and helps you understand what’s happening. It’s quite an incredible journey.”
Though the end result is an engrossing fantasy world, it’s the down-to-earth and occasionally tedious labor of Madden and her coworkers that makes it happen. The work is physical and the hours are long. Tuesday is load-in day at U.S. Bank Arena, where the 100-person Cirque du Soleil road crew and 160 local stagehands assemble the set. That’s a 12-hour work day for Madden – “if not longer,” she says.
Wednesday is “validation day,” meaning that the show’s acrobatic artists test their apparatuses, and Madden and the others make final adjustments to the set. There is a rehearsal on Thursday, followed by the show, and the same thing Friday. There are two shows Saturday and two shows Sunday, followed by the load-out that night, when the tour rolls out for Columbus and does it again next week.
Madden will be working at all of it, showing up early and leaving late. During the show she moves set pieces among other tasks and is on standby in the event something goes haywire.
In other words, Madden’s show-business lifestyle is more about work than play, which comes as a surprise to people in her life.
“Because I get the ability to travel the country, I can show my family and friends what I do when I hit their hometown. I bring them on backstage tours. People don’t really understand. They don’t really think about it. It definitely helps to show them what I am and what I do. I’m not just a crazy kid that ran away to the circus. It’s an amazing job and an incredible career opportunity I have with Cirque du Soleil,” she says.
To Madden’s point, Cirque du Soleil is more corporate culture than circus act. The Montreal-based company employs 4,000 people and has 19 shows in current production, including “Toruk.” The average show does 300 performances a year.
Madden works a pattern of 10 weeks on the job followed by a two-week vacation and has the potential to be promoted within “Toruk” or another Cirque show to the positions of assistant head carpenter and head carpenter. The main reason she took the job with Cirque du Soleil is the same as why others might join the Navy: to see the world. Cirque du Soleil shows travel the globe. There’s talk that Cirque might soon take “Toruk” overseas.
Cirque hired Madden last year after she spent five years working for a Broadway-production company doing touring gigs with the likes of Blue Man Group, “Beauty and the Beast” and “Shrek the Musical.” She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2009 with a degree in film, television and theater and participated in theater production both at Notre Dame and in high school at Ursuline Academy, applying the skills she learned from her dad, an architect.
“One day (in high school) they were building a set in the auditorium, and I noticed that my friends were having a tough time. They were trying to screw together two-by-fours, so I went in and showed them how to use power tools, and from then on I just kept going back,” she says. “Same thing happened in college. I made friends by showing them an easier way to use power tools.”
When it comes to carpentry and construction at Cirque du Soleil, the stakes are higher. The way Madden and the production crew operate today is impacted by what happened three years ago, when a Cirque acrobat fell to her death during a performance in Las Vegas. “Safety is definitely the number-one concern, especially with acrobatics,” says Madden. “We wear hard hats and steel toes for every load-in and load-out. We have rescue kits and rescue training.”
Would Madden call the work dangerous?
“There are aspects where I have to keep my body and those around me safe,” she says. “Because my job is based in Montreal, our load-in and load-out situation is considered a construction zone by the government of Montreal, and we are required to wear safety protection for those times.”
If all goes well during a performance, the audience will never see Madden. But if someone would like to take note of her presence, that person could gaze at the giant tree positioned at stage left. On show day Madden is in charge of stage left, so it will be she who’s moving around that tree 10 times her size. (Not to ruin the magic of the show, but the tree sits on wheels.)
“As much as I want my family and friends to see what I do, I don’t want them to see me actually do it,” she says. “I just want to be able to show it to them when all is said and done.”
About Caitlin Madden
Originally from Cincinnati, Madden first became interested in theatre and carpentry while attending Ursuline Academy and working around the house with her dad – an architect. She went on to receive a degree in film, television and theatre from the University of Notre Dame.
Madden has toured with well-known theatre productions including Blue Man Group, “Beauty and the Beast” and “Shrek The Musical.” She also previously worked with Notre Dame Athletics, specifically football and women’s basketball.
As a carpenter she is part of the team responsible for managing and maintaining the entire stage and set. She is involved in the technical load-in and load-out as well as cues during the show.
“Toruk: The First Flight” is her first tour with Cirque du Soleil.
{ SOURCE: Chris Varias, Cincinnati Enquirer | http://goo.gl/bBLerj }
