For the 12 days of Christmas, Cirque Le Masque's "Noël" wraps a baker's-dozen medley of acrobatics and clown antics into a gift-box performance paced by a propulsive holiday score. If some of the acts fail to amaze or amuse, others surely will.

Weego, the clown, warms up the crowd, which on opening night at the Patchogue Theatre was almost child-free. If you're running late, never mind. Much of the first 15 minutes is a promotion for Gateway Playhouse's next offering on the Patchogue stage -- "Elvis Lives!" -- beginning New Year's Eve.

The loose story thread of "Noël" borrows from "The Nutcracker." Caught in a storm while shopping, Moira (think Clara with a credit card) runs home to bed. Competing for dreamland attention are Mario Diamond as Santa and Weego as a bulging-belly/bubble-butt Grinch. Moira, played by Nicole Lund, witnesses each circus feat that follows.

Lindsay Culbert-Olds twists and tumbles as she's lifted above the stage on aerial straps. She's joined in Act II by Kia-Melinda Eastman in a duo trapeze choreography that's more sensual than sensational.

Brothers Maximiliano and Emiliano Fusco perform a juggling routine that's anything but, culminating in tossing and catching nine rings while balanced one-legged on a spinning stool. Larissa Sherman twirls hula hoops around every part of her body except her waist until she steps into 12 hoops, creating a giant Slinky toy. Rokardy Rodriguez balances in a precarious handstand on dual canes erected into a swaying 16-foot twin tower, followed by a teeterboard "rolla bolla" by Gediminas Pavlovicius, who manipulates stacks of cylinders with his feet.

The relative degree of difficulty appears to be less daunting in the pretty-to-look-at cube juggle and German wheel by Anatoli Miagkostoupov and Chris Delgado, respectively. But George Landkas-Coronas and Miles Ashton Hay, performing their human juggling act while one is reclined in a Risley chair, raise the bar -- only to see Ismet Duarte and Frank Diaz raise it further, executing a strength ballet climaxed by a one-handed handstand on the anchor performer's head.

Don't try either of these -- even in the gym.

But leave it to the clowns to steal the show. Diamond's Santa deserves a fruitcake for his delightful "Silent Cinema" mime, directing a romance starring three audience volunteers.

Cirque le Masque may not enchant younger kids, but tweens could be susceptible to its charms, along with us elders.


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