from a review of the Flea Circus that is playing Sydney:

Cardoso Flea Circus

My first experience of theatrical fleas was at an early age when my parents took me to see comic pianist Victor Borge, and the seats at the old Capitol were infested. I would like to think that perhaps these fleas were runaways from the circuses of the old vaudeville days. I doubt that Maria Fernando Cardoso's fleas have any cause to run away. She feeds them on her own blood after all. In her opening 'lecture' Cardoso tells us that training fleas is a mixture of science and patience-a patience that is not easily found in this modern world. However, it is the technology of custom-designed, ultra-magnified live video projections that make it possible for today's audience to be enthralled by creatures less than 2 millimetres long. And good god, they really are live fleas!

Cardoso, replete with gigantic magnifying goggles and a sheer lime green ringmaster's jacket, gently guides us through the art of training fleas-a lengthy, but entertaining and educational summary of her research. Did you know that fleas copulate for 8 hours, male fleas have 2 penises, and that female fleas are better jumpers and are used exclusively in the circus-the male fleas being retained to keep the girls happy? Then she puts them through their tricks. Being so totally amazed that they actually were real fleas, seeing their little legs wriggling on the video screens, I forgot to watch for exactly how Cardoso gets them to do the high dive, walk a tightrope, sword fight and climb Mount Everest. (The cynic in me suspects fleas are just doing what fleas do-if placed in precarious positions, they hang on and try to get to the other side or gravitate to the warm furry thing.) Her underplayed ironic delivery and little asides when things went wrong, such as taking the flea that was dropped by her trapeze partner to the women's shelter, make Cardoso a very beguiling ringmaster.

The Cardoso Flea Circus is a lecture, a demonstration, it's performative but not quite a performance, a recreation, a friendly farm where you can go up to the enclosures at the end of the show and watch the ballerina fleas keep dancing. It's a genuine sideshow attraction at our very own home of vaudeville, the Sydney Opera House. I still find myself stuttering out "They really are live fleas!" Gail Priest