Don’t “Believe” the hate

Steve Friess

Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008 | 3:09 p.m.

The week before Mystère opened at Treasure Island, an enraged Steve Wynn tore into the creator, Franco Dragone. “This is shit,” a red-faced Wynn shouted. “It’s a fucking German opera.”

Dragone calmed Wynn down, stayed true to the vision and redefined Las Vegas. Mystère, might I remind you, is entering its 15th year as one of the most successful, most profitable live shows ever mounted not just in Las Vegas but the world over.

Which is a circuitous way of saying that first impressions aren’t everything in Las Vegas. Especially when we’re talking about something as malleable as what Cirque du Soleil does onstage.

Yes, I have had my doubts about the alliance between Criss Angel and Cirque du Soleil. Those doubts never really trickled down to what the two entities would ultimately put on the stage or even whether people would come to the Luxor to see it. My concerns have been—and remain—that Angel himself is a mercurial, emotional public figure and that adds an element of uncertainty to the well-oiled Cirque and MGM Mirage machinery that seemed foolish to bet the mortgage on.

Still, reports of Angel’s Las Vegas Strip demise are more than premature. They’re ridiculous. At least for now.

Criss Angel Believe—shouldn’t there be an apostrophe or something in that title?—opened for previews on September 26 after a number of delays. It probably shouldn’t have. Two significant illusions, we are told, aren’t ready. That means that this is a 90-minute magic show that has at least 15 minutes of more magic to put in it and at which audiences presently must wade through a lot of dancing that is just filler.

Last week, I brought my 18-year-old Little Brother (from Big Brothers Big Sisters) with me to a preview. As I’m working presently on a piece about Angel, and as I attended with the understanding that the show isn’t in its final form, I promised not to critique it. But I will say this: My kid, who is a huge Criss Angel and Mindfreak fan and could cite chapter and verse of the more gruesome feats Angel has performed on the TV show, gave what we saw cautious approval. “It’s not finished yet,” he said. So there’s plenty of hope.

On the other hand, there were those less forgiving people chatted up by my colleague Doug Elfman from the Review-Journal following the first previews, who were evidently angry with what they saw. I saw some of those sorts of people, too; there was one guy in particular who stood up, rose two thumbs pointed down high into the air and booed loudly.

Okay, so the show has trouble. But keep in mind that the thumbs-down guy was among a lot of people who stood to clap. A lot of people. More people than you’d think, given the comments that were published.

Last week, Elfman went on KNPR’s State of Nevada to discuss the negative response he reported. The host, Dave Berns, asked Elfman if he could recall such a bad reaction. Elfman could think only of Storm, a Cirque-like show from the 1990s at Luxor, and Zumanity, the Cirque show at New York-New York that offended with its overt sexual content a handful of people who didn’t pay attention to the description of the show they were going to see.

It was an odd answer, because the obvious parallel here may end up being Le Reve at Wynn Las Vegas. That show had black-tie opening-weekend guests walking out in rage, particularly freaked out by the pregnant women falling from the ceiling into the water. Elfman’s colleague, Mike Weatherford, wrote in May of 2005 that “no big-budget show in recent history opened to such negative word of mouth.”

That was more than three years ago and before a long list of changes—buh-bye, gravid leapers—including theater renovations and a new director. Wynn has said that Le Reve is profitable; it’s unlikely he’d keep it around this long if it weren’t. He personally loved Avenue Q and Spamalot far more, and those two came and went. Le Reve endures.

Le Reve was such a disaster-in-waiting at the onset that I did a piece for the Boston Globe on how it could cause real trouble for the Wynn property and even the company’s stock price.

Until I reread that story as I worked on this column, I had forgotten this interesting quote from a Vegas casino expert: “Big Las Vegas spectacles are really a mousetrap to attract people to the property and keep them there and get national and international attention to the property. Plus, when you build these made-to-order theaters, there aren’t many outs. You can’t just close it and say, ‘That was a bad idea.’”

The speaker? Well, that was Felix Rappaport. He was president of New York-New York when Zumanity opened with its minor backlash, and now he’s president of Luxor. So the Criss Angel situation is in Rappaport’s hands, and he’s got experience with such things.

I’m not saying that Elfman’s decision to interview audience members is inappropriate in any way. Cirque and MGM Mirage are accepting hundreds of dollars from attendees, and even if they’re getting a discount, it’s still real money for which they’ve paid for a pleasant 90 minutes of entertainment. If they’re not getting it, that certainly bothers me.

But this is Cirque. They have a perfect batting average in Las Vegas and anywhere else they’ve ever staged performances. They have earned and deserve the benefit of the doubt. Instead, though, we in the media seem to be champing at the bit to predict a failure, a break in the streak, proof of overreaching or creative bankruptcy.

This may be that moment. Believe may very well turn out to be a dud. And Criss Angel may turn out to suffer the same humiliation as Hans Klok last year.

It’s just too soon to say. So perhaps we shouldn’t say so until the show is declared finished by its creators.