In its early years – the mid-70s — Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo was a troupe of comical drag queens with chest hair dressed in tutus and teetering in point shoes. Leap forward to the Trocks’ 2020 North American tour, which took them to Toronto’s Winter Garden on March 7 and 8, and we see an even funnier, much more skilled company of dancers who can do the classical ballet moves, en pointe or off, to a professional standard.

That may be because nearly all the current performers in the company joined between 2014 and 2019. Only Robert Carter (Olga Supphozova and Yuri Smirnov) has been a Trock since the 90s.

Also seen in Toronto as uninvited guest artist Brooke Lynn Hytes is Brock Hayhoe, a graduate of Canada’s National Ballet School. She was a Trock from 2008 to 2012, and this is her first time back on stage with the company since then.

And how funny are these new Trocks? Let us count the ways.

First, they spoof classical story ballet as no other company can. “Dying Swan,” the 1905 solo made for Anna Pavlova, is a Trockadero signature role. In technical terms, Vanya Verikosa, aka Brook Lynn Hytes, performed the feather-spewing role to the usual applause, laughter and endless curtain calls pretty flawlessly. Artistic director Tory Dobrin has tightened up the screws on these dances, adding nuance, subtler gestures and opportunities for split-second timing.

Secondly, the Trocks’ performances make witty satire of the 19^th-century story ballet. The opening excerpt from Act II of Swan Lake, another Trock standard, featured a stunning Prince Siegfried performed by Vladimir Legupski (Duane Gosa, a Chicago-born graduate of the Ailey School) clowning with Benno (Mikhail Mypansarov/Yeric Valentino), his hapless but ambitious page, and handling a klutzy Queen of the Swans, performed by Nadia Doumiafeyva (New Yorker Philip Martin-Nielson).

The mimes – pointing at the ring finger, clutching the heart, swooning in fear – are taken to an extreme. To the sound of splashing and quacks, the tutu-ed swans flap their wings desperately trying to get airborne and swim the crawl to escape their predators. Yuri Smirnov (Robert Carter) made an evil but incongruously happy Von Rothbart, prancing around in Tudoresque pantaloons.

A third trope, which gets funnier as the show goes on, is the spectacle of men playing women playing men. Vladimir Legupski (Chicago-born, Ailey-trained Duane Gosa) is a towering Prince Siegfried in false eyelashes and richly rouged lips in Swan Lake. As Helen Hightower, this dancer takes the role of rivalrous prima ballerina Fanny Cerrito, in Le Grand Pas de Quatre.

Fourthly, everyone loves a clown and the Trocks boast some of the best. Guzella Verbitskaya (Bostonian Jack Furlong Jr) appears as a slightly chunky ballerina, always out of step with her ensemble and, a consummate buffoon, doing a sensational pratfall, or waving to someone in the audience when she should be focused on her dance steps.

However you like your laughs, this company, which played to a delighted sold-out Winter Garden Theatre on Saturday, is bound to please.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo

Presented by Show One Productions at the Winter Garden Theatre,

Toronto, March 7 and 8, 2020

Photo of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo’s Swan Lake by Sascha Vaughn.