I ended my stint in Vegas on Thursday night by returning to Bette Midler’s The Showgirl Must Go On at Caesar’s Palace, which I first saw soon after she began her residency there back in February, and I reported on at the time here. It was, once again, an astonishing show - at 63, she has the same unflagging energy and subversive high spirits that I was originally blown away by when I first encountered her with the release of her 1980 film concert Divine Madness.
That, of course, was 28 years ago; and in the years since, she has added a career as a movie star to those of recording star and legendary comedienne. She’s a one-woman force of nature, and commands the massive stage of the Colosseum stage at Caesar’s with total authority; but the conviction she brings to it is that of a true burlesque entertainer who will do anything - and that means anything - to raise a smile. No one quite combines the brilliant colours and variety of entertainment palettes to the stage that she does - whether singing, dancing up a storm (and keeping up with dancers who are no doubt less than half her age), or telling filthy, bawdy jokes, she’s irrepressible and irresistible.
I was back too late on Thursday night, and off to early on Friday morning for a 6am flight to New York, to post that day; so it is now Sunday morning and I am gazing out over the Hudson river, from the 30th floor apartment of my friends Mike and Tim that I stay in when I’m here, and writing this before I fly home tonight. By coincidence, no sooner did I touch down in New York on Friday than I was heading to another burlesque experience - the return of Absinthe to Spiegelworld, the glorious wooden-structured travelling circus arena I know so well from its annual appearances at the Edinburgh Fringe, but set up here in the even more dazzling setting of South Street Seaport, facing directly towards the Brooklyn Bridge.
And Absinthe, which turns out to be a variation on the La Clique formula of the bizarre, degenerate cabaret acts that has just come to London’s Hippodrome at last, may just be one of the best shows I’ve seen all year. These sorts of shows are all about mood, participation and engagement, and maybe I was just up for all of those things, but it’s a show that joyfully reminded me I’m alive!
As Jason Zinoman reported in his joint New York Times review of Absinthe and La Vie that it is playing in rep with, “What really makes these Spiegelworld productions such unusual, exciting and slightly uneasy experiences is their intimacy. When an acrobat hangs precariously by a chain right above your head, it’s difficult to be a passive observer. And the performers in both shows make an effort, like it or not, to include the crowd. That’s not to say that everyone will have a topless beauty fall into his lap or, perhaps less pleasingly, a greasy-haired degenerate slurp on his toes — as happened to one critic from The Associated Press on the night I attended. If you don’t like audience participation, best keep your shoes tied tightly.”
I was sat on the front row myself, and found myself the object of the lustful attentions of co-host Svetlana Buttersworth, who fondled my beard and undid my top shirt button, but fortunately didn’t go any further; another man, taken onstage later, found himself stripped to the waist, while a woman sitting two along from me was spun around the stage by two performers doing an astonishingly agile rollerskating ballet. But this is a go-with-the-flow night, and it is impossible to remain unengaged or a passive observer in the rich variety of what passes before you; to watch the Duo Sergio, from the Ukraine, do amazing hand (and foot) balancing feets on each other is one of the sexiest sights on a New York stage, while the two Anastasini brothers from Florida has 18-year-old Guliano juggling his 11-year-old sibling Fabio with his feet and spinning him into a double back somersault. It doesn’t always work; though their dad is on hand to act as a personal safety net, young Guliano fell and broke his arm early in the run, but is now healed and back in the show.
There is also a superb Australian cabaret chanteuse, Kaye Tuckerman, whom I have previously encountered on my regular forays to the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, and is now making a bid for serious international acclaim, to change the mood and even provide a little menace.
I wouldn’t have missed it for the world; and it’s astonishing how tame and lame it makes a conventional night at the theatre seem. Especially when, I as I found myself yesterday, I attended a matinee of a new musical version of A Tale of Two Cities, and this turgidly literal, musically insipid spectacle unfolded with no grace and little style. It was previously produced in Sarasota, Florida last October before someone raised a reported $15m to bring it on to Broadway; and it’s dispiriting to read what a labour of time, development and apparent love it has been, given how paltry the results turn out to be. Yes, it has finally reached Broadway; but it does itself no favours to be thus exposed.
On the other hand, a similar labour of love and hard work has been applied to 13, the new musical by Jason Robert Brown that I first saw in workshop at Goodspeed’s Norma Terris Theatre back in June, and it has paid dividends. I reported here at the time that, as the show itself has it in one of its major songs, they’ve got “a little more homework to do.” But that shaping and honing has now taken place; and seeing it again last night, what has emerged is a tight, terrific and poignant rites-of-passage story about a group of teenagers that puts kids on stage - and will surely bring them into the audience, too, for this gently sophisticated and musically rich evening.
Hi,
I thought you might be interested in another “Tale of Two Cities Musical” that is wending it's way to Broadway (Perhaps via Boston). This one has a distinctively low budget so far but a very singable score and an engaging book. You might want to check out some of the songs. http://www.taleoftwocitiesmusical.com/