Tony wasn't much of a looker. Actually, to give a fair description to all the eligible bachelorettes out there, it seemed as if God, when creating Tony in his mother's womb, had neglected some flecks of melanin in his hair, had drawn a few too many wrinkles across his forehead, and had forgotten to bless him beyond a few inches past his knees--not your average Brad Pitt, I would say. But Tony, the lonesome single who, not two hours before, could be discovered donning a past-vogue woolen vest with his nose buried deep behind the "Personals" section of the paper, had finally found and gotten dizzily lost in a cozy love for two.

So now the dilemma was, "How to pop the question?..." Colby students and Waterville residents alike, having caught drift of news that former Cirque du Soleil aerialists would grace the stage in Strider Theater, overwhelmed the theater lobby last Friday in an eager rush to secure tickets for the performance. "The Love Show," featuring a cast of professional aerial and circus performers of Nimble Arts, wooed the audience with its incorporation of beautiful and oftentimes playful aerial and circus choreography into its theater performance about love.

Perhaps a few leaps too shy of the intense daredevil stunts typical of Cirque du Soleil acrobatic acts, "The Love Show" still boasted a diverse repertoire of talent, ranging from juggling pin upon pin across the stage to an incredible display of lithe flexibility and muscular skill as the performers tested their bodies against every possible physical limit. All the while, they connected their choreography to the collage of romantic relationships that was unraveling between the various couples on stage.

Elsie Smith and Serenity Smith Forchion, the twin sisters who founded Nimble Arts after retiring from their careers in the competitive circus, awed the audience with their aerial performance atop a single suspended bar from the ceiling. As each sister alternated between playing human hook to swinging athletically back and forth from the hook that had been created by the other, their two bodies seemed to fuse together in a delightful contortion, as if their limbs were the mirrored shapes and patterns of a life-sized human kaleidoscope.

In the meantime, Cupid, in his characteristically juvenile dress, pranced on and off the stage wearing his signature white cotton diaper, adorned only by a pair of miniscule butterfly wings and equipped dutifully with his bow and arrow held tightly to his chest.

Although his playful demeanor and frequent humorous blunders, although frustrated the romantic plans of his fellow characters in the play, they were immediately met by hearty laughs and gleeful applause from the audience.

But perhaps the most impressive display of the night was by the character Tony, who was determined to make a winning marriage proposal to the girl of his dreams. Taking a machete, a flaming torch, and a kitchen knife with a bite of cheese stuck to the top, Tony announced that he would juggle the three sharp objects while balancing his weight on a trapeze rope. And, as a magnificent finish, he would consume the cheese (still attached to the knife) while in midair.

And so, to the immense nail-biting tension of his love interest and everyone else in the room, Tony juggled all three objects, and broke the long silence with a leap in the air and a satisfying gulp of cheese. "Jen, will you marry me?" Tony said, in a breathless, but bright and hopeful, nasal voice. "Yes, of course!" Jen cried out.

And that was how Tony broke out of his lonesome, single mold, fell in love, proposed and got married.