Absinthe: Made of strong stuff

Jacob Oberman is one half of the duo Straps who feature in the show Absinthe. Jacob describes his act with fellow performer Maika Isogawa as an aerial love story.

The high twirling performer first entered the world of circus and cabaret when he was quite young.

“I started off in a circus school when I was seven or eight, quit for a while, and ten came back when I was in High School when I was fourteen. I got really involved in the circus school in Minnesota and it took off from there.” Jacob said. “I was there about 25 hours a week, just practicing every act they threw at me.”

The dedication has paid off as the performer is now part of ‘Absinthe’, the latest show from Speigelworld, the team who brought the popular production ‘Empire’ to Perth last year.

Jacob says the duos main job is to make something that’s technically very difficult look quite easy. “I think our main job is to make it look easy, you want people to think ‘I could have done that…’ but then they go home and say, ‘Oh, wait a minute.’”

The flying artist shares that he has tried the drink that the show takes its name from. “Absinthe, it was very much like licorice, I don’t know if I liked it that much.”

Absinthe has a strictly limited season on the backlot at Perth Arena from 11^th July. Ticket details at Ticketek.