Chaplin’s family circus

As a child of three, Aurélia was small enough to fit in her parents’ suitcase.

It appeared as if her legs sprouted from the bottom of the luggage as the little girl scooted around or was carried off by its handle. But “appeared” is the operative word, as Aurélia was a pint-sized performer in “Le Cirque Imaginaire,” the small-scale, modern family circus created by her parents, Victoria Chaplin and Jean-Baptiste Thierrée. The family business entertained audiences around the world.

Victoria is the daughter of Charlie Chaplin. Her latest creation is a show written and directed for Aurelia.

Charlie’s granddaughter appears at times to be more — or less — than the sum of her parts.

In “Aurélia’s Oratorio,” opening at the Irvine Barclay Theatre next week, parts of Aurélia pop up in a dresser, a locomotive passes through her torso and, attired in a golden gown, arms and legs vanish and sand appears at her feet as she transforms herself into a human egg timer.

“I love optical illusions, and that people can agree to be fooled for a while,” Aurélia said.

“For this show, I wanted to serve my mother’s vision, and the world that she presents in the best way that I could.”

Comparisons to her grandfather’s career are unavoidable, but what she tries to do is point out that her show is much more reflective of what her parents have done.

“This is how they started, and the show is rooted in circus and dance.”

Theater president Doug Rankin said the creative lineage of the Chaplin family is extraordinary.

“Aurélia’s Oratorio is more physical than verbal, there are almost no words, the music is grand, and it’s not a linear piece. It builds upon itself,” Rankin said.

The Balboa Performing Arts Theatre collaborated with Irvine Barclay to introduce Aurélia’s work to a block of their subscribers as part of its “Season Without Walls” series.

Because the theater group doesn’t have its own facility yet, director Mary Lonich said collaborating with existing arts organizations allows them to build a subscriber base and expose more people in the community to major performances at other venues.

One of the things that makes this show so exciting, Lonich said, is that it’s a very different type of drama.

“It’s pretty much a one-man show, and it’s hard to pull something like that off. It’s not something you see very often, and the Charlie Chaplin twist is very fitting for a theater that goes way back to the 1920s,” Lonich said, with very creative art forms contained within the same show.

In some scenes, nothing appears as it seems, and Aurélia, the acrobat, dancer and actress, takes audiences on a journey to an upside-down, inside-out world based on drawings she and her mother discovered in a medieval book.

“A man was carrying a horse, a woman was going off to war, everything was reversed. We thought there would be good visuals if we reverted images,” Aurélia said.

For each performance, the dynamic with the audience is different. The work is impressionistic, it’s perceived differently by everyone who sees it, and reactions and responses vary. Sometimes, Aurélia said, the audience is quiet through the whole piece, other times they laugh and clap, but her hope is that everyone is open to the experience.

“I would like audiences to come not expecting anything, to come completely blank, and after, tell us what they saw.”

Even after five years Aurelia said she never knows on a given night if the show is going to work, and she strives to keep the performance fresh all the time.

“That’s what makes live theater interesting, is that it’s encompassing everything that’s around that night, and I learn something every time I do the show.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “Aurélia’s Oratorio”

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.

WHERE: Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine

COST: $32 and $39

INFO: Call (949) 854-4646 or go to www.thebarclay.org

SUE THOENSEN may be reached at (714) 966-4627 or at sue.thoensen@latimes.com.