BY KAREN BOSSICK

The 65-minute performance at the Argyros Performing Arts Center contained no words.

And C!RCA show “What will Have Been” left some in the audience speechless, as well.

“It will be unlike any circus performance you’ve been to in your life,” promised Casey Mott, The Argyros’ executive director, before Saturday’s show started. “I watched last night as a woman wiped a tear from her eye. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen anything like that at a circus before.”

Indeed, the show plumbed the depths of emotion as its three performers walked on stage, looking as if they were yearning to embrace one another but not actually touching one another in a display of missed human connections through not-quite interlocking bodies that was poetic to watch.

Lauren Herley took it to new heights as she wrapped two canvas aerial straps around her hands, then slowly began climbing, her body at one angle, then another. It was sad, pensive, agonizing in some ways, as she twisted and turned her way up towards the ceiling.

The pace picked up as she made some frenetic twirls. She elicited oohs with splits. Then, a free fall.

Daniel O’Brien responded in turn on top of a handstand apparatus, which he inspected, moved through and around and then finally mounted.in a balancing act. He stood at attention as Robbie Curtis and Herley stood atop him, a violinist playing all the while.

The acrobats wore black and white spotlighted in dramatic fashion against stark blackness of stage curtain. The starkness only served to highlight the intense physicality—the contortionism, the strength, the endurance, the focus--of the show.

The show, created by Yaron Lifshitz, showed heart as it showed the human condition, such as the complex relationship between a man and woman as she resisted his attempts at control.

They did some unimaginable things—jumping through human hands and leapfrogging their partners as they stood up.

There were moments reminiscent of a Charlie Chaplin routine. And there were jarring thuds when they carried out planned falls, smacking the floor. And, then—gag—came the necktie acrobatics.

If you blinked, you missed something.

The latest in The Argyros Presents series it was one more example of the experiences the performing arts theater has offered Sun Valley residents since its opening during the 2018 holiday season.

The theater has come up with an amazing variety of programs we wouldn’t otherwise have seen in Sun Valley, including a fast-paced multimedia programming looking at the history of the Baby Boomer generation and Dan Hoyle’s one-man show featuring the talking points of border people along the United States’ Mexican and Canadian borders.

Sun Valley’s own Isabella Boylston’s received raves for her unique fusing of ballet with a live rock music band and others enjoyed getting to see a concert featuring Sun Valley homeowner Rita Wilson.

And, then, of course, there was the amazing debut of the Sun Valley Music Festival’s Winter Festival that we wouldn’t have had without the theater.

COMING UP:

The Argyros will present “Into the Canyon,” a film featuring the journey on feet through the Grand Canyon,  on Sept. 14. Lunafest 2019 will take place Oct. 3, followed by the San Francisco Ballet Stars of Tomorrow on Oct. 5.

For more information, visit www.theargyros.org.