Teatro ZinZanni: Hotel L'Amour

After a year away from reviewing Teatro ZinZanni, I came back to it for the current show "Hotel L'Amour" to find many of my old favorite performers with some I've never seen before coming together to create an absolutely enchanting night out.

Teatro Zinzanni bills itself as "a three hour whirlwind of cirque, comedy, cabaret served with a multi-course feast." Over the years I've seen some shows with a strong plot line, and others with just the barest suggestion of a framework to hold the complexity of the event together.

"Hotel L'Amour" had almost no plot at all, but because of the wonderful ensemble work of the cast -- frankly some of the best I've seen from Teatro Zinzanni -- and an overarching desire to pay tribute to the incredible career of cast member Liliane Montevecchi, this show was cohesive and delightful from start to finish.

Liliane Montevecchi has a long history on stage and screen as a dancer, singer and actress, as well as a 10-year career as the star of "The Folies Bergere." During the course of the evening we were treated to her marvelous voice and her still spectacular legs, as well as her sense of bawdy humor, which often erupted from her in a surprisingly raucous hee-haw bray of a laugh. As an extra treat, some of her old film clips played from time to time with her providing the side bar commentary, like a live version of the special features on your DVDs.

Regulars Frank Ferrante, reprising his Caesar character, and Dreya Weber act somewhat as the emcees of the evening, while Yevgeniy Voronin (The Maestro) provides the deliciously creepy glue that holds the night together.

Voronin is one of the more understated performers of the night, slinking around like a vampire who just walked out of an old black and white movie, performing his silent deadpan illusions with a touch of sly humor. Together with his living marionette Svetlana Perekhokova and his young gee-whiz assistant, he creates the atmospheric undertone for the rest of the cast. It's almost beside the point that his illusions are amazing.

The acts are good enough that I'll run out of superlatives long before I finish describing them. I adore Dreya Weber's aerial work and her performance in this show is possibly one of the best I've ever seen from her. What I love about her as a performer is that her simplest moves hold meaning, so the audience isn't left waiting for the spectacular, but can truly enjoy the entirety of the act. She held the audience spellbound before receiving a spontaneous standing ovation.

Two other physical performers fill out the cirque piece of the show: Ling Rui performs an incredible straps act, and Viktor Kee does a juggling act that is technically stupefying and filled with beautiful physicality.

While each act in itself was marvelous and received well by an audience that was in good spirits and sometimes downright mischievous with the performers, it was really the wonderful way that the evening held together as a whole that won me over.

I've mentioned before that the food at Teatro Zinzanni made a substantial upswing in quality a while back and I'm happy to see that that is still true. It used to be that the food was decent but sort of an afterthought compared to the rest of the show. The meal when we attended was delicious, from the salmon mousse profiteroles to the steak with chimichurri sauce and a sweet potato cake, to the excellent wine pairings with the meal. Kudos to chef Zachary Campbell and to the team that produces the meals!

Teatro Zinzanni continues to be an excellent way to celebrate a special occasion, but this show is really something special and will make any evening you choose to attend a celebration in its own right.

"Hotel L'Amour" runs through September 25 at Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St. in Seattle. For information or tickets, call 206-802-0015 or visit online at www.zinzanni.com.