Quick Take
Mendocino's Flynn Creek Circus opens a two-week run with its new "Arctic Myth" show under its own big top at the Capitola Mall.
The aerial artists and acrobats of Flynn Creek Circus are back in town — and by “town” we mean in their big top in the parking lot of the Capitola Mall. The Mendocino-based troupe delighted local audiences last December – and returned in March for a benefit performance for flood victims.
Flynn Creek opens its new big winter show, “Arctic Myth,” on Thursday for the winter solstice, and it runs through Jan. 7.
If you didn’t see last year’s performance, Flynn Creek is an astounding collection of artists — athletes, really — with a taste for the theatrical. In a charming cabaret-style setting (particularly amazing considering that you’re sitting in the middle of a mall parking lot), Flynn’s performers mix the enchantment of storytelling with the guaranteed wow factor of trampolines, the trapeze, the low wire. There was even a snowball fight (albeit with phony snow).
But are there animals? Well, if you count costumes, then sure, plenty. But all performers in this circus are indeed human. This is a boutique circus, dedicated to flawless physical performance, charming theatrics, a winter’s theme often steeped in folk myth (though no Santa Claus stuff), and a sense of magic that will appeal to kids.
This year’s theme, “Arctic Myth,” is built on a story of a British explorer bound for the South Pole who gets waylaid, in a big way, and winds up shipwrecked at the North Pole. The Capitola shows are at the end of the organization’s 2023 tour of venues throughout California and Oregon. Thanks to Tandy Beal & Co., the Pickle Family Circus and other performing groups, audiences in Santa Cruz County have become accustomed over the years with these European-style, non-mainstream circuses.
In an interview before last year’s show, Flynn Creek’s Blaze Birge said, “We’ve been described as a kind of ‘punk rock’ circus before. And that’s not because we’re wearing spiked mohawks or anything like that. But there is a little bit of a new pushing the edges with us.”
The circus opens Thursday and runs for a whopping 28 performances — including some adults-only shows that contain a bit more adult language and elements of burlesque — through Jan. 7.
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