If a Samuel Beckett devotee were to create a piece for Cirque du Soleil -- which, depending on your view of Waiting for Godot, may not be utterly unimaginable -- the result might look a lot like Slava's Snowshow.

The long-running, immensely popular celebration of clowning and snow has its official opening at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday. But it's already a hit with Miami audiences who have been flocking to the show and snapping up tickets since it began performances on Thursday. Ticket sales are so strong, in fact, that the show's run has been extended through Aug. 31.

Slava's Snowshow is the creation of a masterful Russian clown and showbiz entrepreneur named Slava Polunin. He originated the show's central role, the Yellow Clown, and often plays it. Sometimes, though, others in the company don the yellow costumes, a red wig that looks as though Yellow has stuck his finger in an electrical socket just before his entrance, and expressive makeup that gives him a sad-eyed look no matter how far one is from the stage.

Artem Zhimolokhov, a member of the troupe that includes Robert Saralp, Oleg Lugovskoy, Ivan Polunin, Elena Ushakova, Nikolai Terentiev, Tatiana Karamysheva, Dmitry Khamzin, Oleg Sosnovikov and Slava himself, played the Yellow Clown at the performance I saw. He might be Yellow when you see the show, or Slava might, or someone else might. Unless you're an avid follower of Slava Polunin, it probably doesn't matter: The master has taught his cast well, and the show is mostly about playful (and sometimes interactive) spectacle anyway.

Slava's Snowshow is a wintry mural that holds as many individualized stories as there are folks in the audience. Each observer reacts differently, connects to different facets of the show, feels the stirring of different experiences or emotions or memories. For some, Slava's Snowshow will be joyous fun and nothing more; for others, the experience will burrow deeper and turn poignant.

The Yellow Clown is, at first, such a down-in-the-dumps fellow that he shuffles onstage carrying a noose, which he drapes around his neck. But mortal danger doesn't last long: A posse of Green Clowns sees to that.

Yellow grows taller as he breathes in, shorter as he exhales. A bed becomes his storm-tossed boat in frigid seas. Pierced with arrows shot by a Green Clown who looks like a bedraggled fallen angel, he staggers, then staggers some more, then appears to die. Yet moments later, he's fine, which is why this is Slava's Snowshow and not Waiting for Godot.

Spectacle, effects, music and movement -- not language -- are the driving forces in Slava's Snowshow. At times, the combination of smoke effects, lighting and booming music move the show briefly into an ominous place; at one point, with the smoke turned red by the lights, Yellow seems briefly trapped in clown hell.

Such moments, and the fact that a close-up clown might suddenly be standing on the back of the seat beside you, are the reason the show isn't recommended for children younger than 8 or so. Many littler ones were in a matinee audience with me, and a few were clearly terrified at times. The Russian clowns, however, offered made-for-Miami reassurance, sweetly murmuring, ''No tengas miedo,'' or don't be afraid.

Real children and grownups who can still access a childlike spirit will have a ball at Slava's Snowshow -- literally. After a wondrous blizzard has carpeted the Arsht Center's Sanford and Dolores Ziff Opera House with paper ''snow,'' the performers bat gigantic balls out into the audience, which keeps the giant orbs soaring, much as a motley collection of physically deft clowns keep the spirits of the folks watching Slava's Snowshow aloft.

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