Vacation vs Vacation: Show Edition

Competition: Michael Jackson: One vs Love

We saw three shows in Vegas. Two Cirque du Soleil shows: One (Michael Jackson) and LOVE (Beatles), plus an Ingrid Michaelson show. (You just can’t compare Ingrid to Cirque, since she doesn’t bounce off of trampolines, so I’ll leave her out of the competition.)

My decision to hate all Cirque shows was mainly based on a documentary I saw and the O show we saw last time we were in Las Vegas. If Cirque presented itself as an artistic gymnastics spectacle, I’d be fine, but instead they suggest their shows have “characters,” and thus I assume there is also a plot, and I am subsequently confused and disappointed.

Michael Jackson: One

(All the photos from the Cirque shows were taken outside the theater. If you pull out your camera, even before the show, they are on you.)

I had concerns before I even sat down at the show. We brought a supply of cough drops, pre-unwrapped because we didn’t want to disturb anyone with even the wrapper noise, much less the deafening cough. Of course, this was ridiculous because the show was more deafening: we couldn’t even hear ourselves cough. More distracting: I ate something before the show. It became obvious mid-way in that I would need to leave my seat.

I stepped into the lobby. An usher said, “Restroom?”

I answered, “Why yes. I suppose that’s the only reason anyone would leave.”

He said, “Usually they’re running,” which was nice, because it made me feel a little bit proud. Also, two other people visited the bathroom while I was there, and like me, they had to. I wonder if, like me, they calculated the amount of ticket price they were wasting during the visit to the bathroom (thirty one dollars and fifty cents).

I came back and Gary said I hadn’t missed anything good, just stripper poles and juggling, whatever that has to do with Michael Jackson. (I had to read the Wikipedia page later to find out.)

I came back in time for Thriller, and more important, Man in the Mirror, which had an effect that literally made me say “Wow.” It was, of course, the hologram.

Everyone was talking last weekend about the MJ hologram at the Billboard Music awards. That was accomplished by projecting MJ images on to an actual dancer. I think they did the Vegas effect by projecting an image of MJ onto a thin see-through screen, then having all the live dancers dance behind the screen as well. At first I thought “Wow, that dancer in the middle looks and dances just like Michael Jackson,” and I was still admiring him when he dissolved into gold pixie dust. It was impressive. Then he reappeared, danced some more, and this time the other dancers distracted me enough so I was again caught off guard when the fake one dissolved into pixie dust.

However, one effect does not a good show make.

LOVE

Let me tell you what makes a good show: a cast of characters everyone recognizes without Wikipedia: Eleanor Rigby, Mr Kite, etc.

The LOVE show is presented in a custom-built theater which is essentially a giant mechanized ball. You sit in the core of this ball that is honeycombed with ports for lighting, trapezes, wires, and vortexes for gymnasts to plummet from, and so on. Toward the end I noticed there was a gymnast who was stuck in her portal and someone had to come rescue her.

The characters are all recognizable (except for The Walrus, I did have to turn to Wikipedia for him), so the part of my brain that asks, “Who is this guy? What’s his motivation?” just turned right off and I could enjoy the show as a live-action version of an animated psychedelic Beatles video.

It was all remarkable (no holograms, though). At one point they covered the entire audience with a giant yellow parachute, and that was a better nod to audience unity than the “We Are One” ending to Michael Jackson: One.

Winner: LOVE

I know. I’m amazed too! I actually liked a Cirque show!