It is famously said that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. That’s usually used as a licence for people to cheat on their partners. But it also applies to many of the shows that play here – though there are Vegas sit-down productions of West End and Broadway hits from the long-running stands here of Mamma Mia! (at Mandalay Bay) and Spamalot (at the Wynn, where I have been staying) to the arrival in April of Jersey Boys (at the Venetian’s new Palazzo extension), many other theatrical attractions can be seen in Vegas only and nowhere else.
That trend has been led by Cirque du Soleil. They may, of course, be a globalised travelling circus franchise, but they long ago hit on the idea of making their Vegas shows unique to it; and in the process, they created a new template for entertainment here with a series of no-expense-spared productions that have seen them reinventing themselves and the forms they work within with each show, from the water-based spectacle of ‘O’ to ‘Love’, set to a pre-existing pop soundtrack.
It has given them a creative focus and energy, too, that some of their more recent touring productions have lacked; and as I was writing here only the other day, I couldn’t wait to return to the latest of them, ‘Love’, that sets re-mastered originals of Beatles songs to a pulsing parade of physical movement. I duly did so last night, and loved it just as much as did the first time I saw it.
But if ‘Love’ represents the “new” Vegas, it was instructive last night to go straight from ’Love’ to what was the first of the current big “production shows” to set its stall in creating something unique and spectacular for the town: Jubilee (playing at Bally’s) originally opened back in 1981, and has been running ever since. But this “old” Vegas of tease and titillation (that intentionally puts the tits into the latter word) isn’t much more than a tired old variety follies-style burlesque, with added setpieces like an onstage recreation of the sinking of the Titanic. It’s the quintessential “tired businessman” show of the old school with a bit of topless nudity to keep them awake, but in fact is looking so cheesy now it should be served with crackers…. except that the cheese is getting a bit too mouldy to digest.
If nothing else, it also proves just how innovative Cirque du Soleil were in re-formatting the old variety show that this represents; but some of it, too, is (perhaps unintentionally) hilarious. There were, for instance, so many shaved armpits on display (and that was just among the chorus boys) during the Samson and Delilah section that I wondered if Imac were a corporate sponsor, or at least a major beneficiary of the show’s budget. Those boys, too, were sporting the kind of studded posing pouches and harnesses across their chests that made it look like they were prowling some mid-70s gay fetish club. And a speciality act of two men who set balls attached to ropes into a flurry of movement was prefaced by them offering them up to a member of the audience to inspect with an invitation to “feel my balls”. I have a feeling that someone else may have said that to me this week, too, but as I said earlier, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
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