Ripped Russians give crowd a sweet time in ‘Candyman’

Friday, April 15, 2005 | 8:26 a.m.

First the Iron Curtain came down ...

And then the pants.

A Russian male revue featuring a cast of bodybuilders has landed on Fremont Street at Fitzgeralds, tantalizing their female fans with a form of detente probably never envisioned by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Talk about your glasnost these eight performers are about as open as they can get without being deported from downtown.

"Candyman: From Russia with Love" made its American debut in the second-floor showroom of the Old Las Vegas casino in March.

Something new has been added to the vintage neighborhood.

The problem is, will gals make the trek to Fremont Street to experience international relations?

Some may think Las Vegas already has enough male strippers, including such shows as the other import, Australia's "Thunder from Down Under" at Excalibur, or "Men The Show" at Seven and the classic "Chippendales" at the Rio.

Why do we need yet another buffet of buff men to feed the lust of lecherous ladies?

Especially one in which the performers, overall, do not have the same chiseled physiques as their competitors to the south?

The other shows feature casts of men who probably spend more time in the gym to acquire the classic cut appearance that they exploit in their various productions.

But the "Candyman" cast members have a little different focus. While they generally have superior bodies, which the ladies appreciate, their emphasis is more on showmanship -- they are dancers and performers first, bodybuilders second.

This is a more theatrical experience than the other productions, with the men performing superbly choreographed routines while teasing the women -- many of whom at a recent performance stared with their jaws dropped.

The show opens with host Andriy Myagkostupov, a comedian and graduate of the Moscow Circus School, performing some sleight-of-hand tricks to warm up the audience.

Not that the audience needed to be warmed up. The women at a show this week arrived ready to be entertained.

Then three of the cast members perform a dance routine in the dark as they hold flashlights and walk through the audience, inviting fans to rub the dancers' stomachs and other parts of their anatomy.

Throughout the almost 90-minute performance volunteers are brought onstage to become part of the act. And the dancers frequently leave the stage to mingle with the crowd.

Periodically women rush to the stage to stuff money down the dancers' G-strings.

There are two entertaining speciality acts in the show, apparently there to break up the sexual tension threatening to explode the room.

One is a muscular, 21-year-old juggler whose parents toured with the Moscow Circus. Vladik has been juggling since the age of 6.

The other is a cube-spinning routine by Anatoli Miagkostoupov, a longtime Vegas performer who amazes audiences with his handling of a cube that continually changes shapes.

"Candyman," with its slightly different approach to the typical male revue, is an excellent show, one that has a lot of class and is fun to watch for both men and women.

But there are a couple of problems.

Besides being downtown, which is becoming less of a handicap than it used to be in the not-so-distant past, the production is hampered by the size of the 120-seat showroom.

This troupe needs some room to move.

The stage is too small and the ceiling too low for some of the acrobatics the men are capable of performing, which means fans only get a sample of their potential.

And if the show catches on, the 120 seats won't be nearly enough to accommodate all the women hankering to get a look at the dancers' hammers and sickles.