I know, I know: it’s Paris Las Vegas, not Paris, France. For several years I’ve wanted to see the Cirque du Soleil show “O”, but it only plays in Las Vegas, that disturbing theme park of a city. My family bought show tickets as a birthday gift, a lovely gesture, but one necessitating a trip to unlovely Las Vegas.
Las Vegas is plopped into an otherwise beautiful desert setting and is full of ‘homages’ to the great cities of the world. Why do so many people choose to visit a faux Egyptian pyramid and sphinx? Or faux Venice? I might be able to understand the cartoon emulation of NYC, complete with fake Brooklyn Bridge, midget Lady Liberty and phony Chrysler Building. Middle America could be too frightened of the real thing after watching too many episodes of Law and Order on TV.
But why-oh-why would anyone create faux France when the real thing is so spectacularly beautiful and inviting? Paris Las Vegas has installed imitation storefronts, like Hollywood creates false building facades. All of these are indoors with a trompe-l’œil sky. The whole effect is creepy.
And instead of chic, interesting French people wandering the streets, there are slow-moving herds of immense Americans tromping the bogus boulevards. And we Americans are certainly ugly compared with the French! Why do we wear ill-fitting T-shirts and voluntarily provide free advertisements for wealthy corporations? Or broadcast inane sayings across our backs and chests? And how come the folks under 70 are huge and doughy and those over 70 are tiny and wizened? I guess the fat people die off by 70.
Note to self: Start diet and exercise program immediately! Je suis au regime maintenant…
The Cirque du Soleil show link
is worth enduring the Las Vegas experience. It’s ironic to travel to the desert to see a water show. “O” should actually be named ‘Eau’, but that’s probably too big a concept for Americans to handle. It’s playing at the Bellagio, where it’s too expensive to stay (save your money for “O” tickets and stay at a cheaper place off the strip). And you have to pass through all the gaming tables with fat people and little old ladies flushing money down the slots while smoking and drinking. But once you’re in the theater, you enter another world. Two rows in front of me a group was speaking French, the couple beside me spoke Japanese, and off to the right I heard Germans.
The show is dream-like; it plays with your sense of reality. Sometimes the stage has a solid floor. Sometimes it’s a shallow pool of water. And then suddenly a person high-dives from 3 stories into it.
The music is live and has elements of Eastern European music, North African, Chinese and the music of many other cultures. The costuming likewise is dream-like and includes elements from Bruegel paintings, blood-red cassacks that whirl out like dervishes when the dancers twirl, and archetypal fairy tale imagery.
The acrobatics are integrated into the dreamy quality and only once or twice was I jolted out of the reverie with the sensation of watching The Flying Wallendas on Ed Sullivan. Did you ever have a dream in which you could fly? This show makes you believe it might be possible.
