Two’s company for daredevil twins

Nick Bond
January 23, 2013

Pierre and Pablo Caesar are two beautiful, blonde brothers who The Observer once described as having sprung “fully formed from the fantasies of Jean-Paul Gaultier” – and countless other gay men, no doubt. The Polish acrobatic duo, professionally known as The Caesar Twins, have performed together since childhood, and will visit Australia for the first time in five years when they star in The Trip, a daring cabaret coming to Melbourne’s Spiegeltent from February 12.

“Right now it is so cold in Germany, so it is great to go there,” the brothers said via email from their homebase in Berlin.

“Melbourne is a bit like Berlin but with better weather!”

Sub-zero temperatures aside, the German capital has been very good to the Caesar Twins in recent years. The brothers have fostered a community of like-minded circus artists and cabaret performers, who will join them in Melbourne for The Trip.

“It’s an artist pool we created together with (Trip director) Markus Pabst after our return from Australia last time. It is so much nice to travel together with friends when you have done it for such a long time. And we are always looking around for great young artists who think differently – Berlin has such a great tradition of cabaret and the new scene is developing fast.”

The brothers’ on-stage repertoire makes many references to their relationship as identical twins – in one unique routine, they perform a gymnastics routine in clear glass bowl, ‘symbolically representing their ongoing journey together, which began in utero’. Throughout their career, the twins have also taken some pleasure in keeping their audience guessing which brother they’re watching on stage.

“That has changed a bit in the past year: we now also show a part of our own identities,” Pierre said.

“When we were young, we really played a lot with the point of being identical,” Pablo continued. But you know, we are two [people] and at the age of 30, we cannot be exactly the same any longer. What I enjoy most nowadays is being on stage and giving people a smile.”

It hasn’t been an easy ride, though – it’s now just over a decade since Pablo suffered a life-threatening accident that almost ended his entire career. Performing their notorious act ‘Wheel of Death’, Pablo fell 16 metres to the ground and severely injured himself. It took extensive surgery and months of rehabilitation before he was able to return to the stage.

“It needed time, because a lot of people – including the doctors – told me I would never return to the stage. But I fought, and it worked. Sometimes you have to do things that seem to be impossible but then in the end, you even get better,” said Pablo.

“You cannot change the past, but it can change you.”