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The Long Haul

A select few have been a part of `Mystere' since its debut

Some dream of running away to join the circus. And some do. But few stay.

"This is not a job for everyone. You've got to love it," says Natasha Chao, one the few performers who have been with Cirque du Soleil's "Mystere" since it opened at Treasure Island in the final week of 1993.

Show business is transitory by definition, the circus even more so. Cirque du Soleil adds the extra dimension of originating in Canada and recruiting worldwide, thus introducing most of its 72 cast members to a new country and often a different language.

But for those 11 who were here from the beginning, working in one of the Strip's few unqualified hits is a strangely grounding experience.

For the 27-year-old Chao, it was a place to come of age, onstage and off. For 49-year-old guitarist Bruce Rickerd, it was finding an extended musical family. And for 69-year-old clown Brian Dewhurst, it was a family reunion after a family loss.

The guitarist

Rickerd shrugs off the fact he's never missed a show in eight years and counting of "Mystere."

"I never felt sick enough to miss a day's work," he says.

Besides, as a bandleader in Canada, "if I missed a day's work, it meant the whole band was off."

And it's not like he's in the risky business of vaulting from other people's shoulders, or flinging himself from a teeter board, like those who rehearse nearby on this particular afternoon.

Still, the 10-piece band is crucially involved in "Mystere," and often cited as a key to its success. The show opened at a time when next door at The Mirage, "Siegfried & Roy" seemed to signal a shift to putting big shows' scores on tape.

Instead, "Mystere" musicians are displayed on both sides of the stage, lending a vitality to the dreamy acrobatics.

"The music is interactive with the action. We had a terrible accident once. Somebody shattered his leg," Rickerd recalls.

The band covered.

"Rule No. 1 for a show like this is, `You've got to keep the music playing.' You can't stop. There can't be any dead air."

When Rickerd was leading cover bands in Canada, he encouraged keyboardist Benoit Jutras to accept a job offer from Cirque. A year and a half later, Jutras called back as "Mystere's" musical director with a question, "What if I offered you the No. 1 guitar gig in Vegas?"

Treasure Island's custom theater "wasn't even finished yet," Rickerd recalls. "We had to wear hard hats onstage."

Since then, the music has evolved and Rickerd's guitar solos have grown with his tenure. But when two shows are done each night, "I go out and play some more. ... When I leave here I'm just warmed up."

You can find him inside the smoky Sand Dollar Blues Lounge or the Kitchen Cafe, where "I fool them into thinking I'm a jazz player." Weekend nights are at Spanky's Pub, sitting in with "whoever's there."

Rickerd feels like a local, but was reminded he's still here on a visa when he investigated college tuition costs for his 20-year-old son.

Some performers earn residency with the government by proving they have irreplaceable skills.

"I guess I'm not unique enough," he muses.

If only attendance counted.

The acrobat

Trained to be an Olympic gymnast, Chao found Cirque "a little too weird for me and my little gymnastics background" when she auditioned in Montreal. "It was out there."

Of course, you know what happened. Not only was she hired, but promptly shipped to Las Vegas.

But the 19-year-old soon found "Mystere" to be "the great part" of life here.

"I didn't like it in the beginning. It felt like I was carded to cross the street. I couldn't go out with any of my friends. This really is a town for adults, not for minors," she says.

"And then when you turn 21 and start partying, it's not good either," Chao adds with a laugh.

Gradually, responsive audiences coaxed out a theatrical side she never knew existed.

Chao was part of the Canadian gymnastics team at the 1992 Olympics, but "the sad thing about gymnastics is that I never had any input into anything I did. ... You were basically a robot. You were told what to do, how to act, how to smile, what to eat."

Working in the "Mystere" house troupe, which is akin to the chorus of a Broadway musical, gave her the desire to try out for a larger role. Two years ago, she sent a videotape to director Franco Dragone and won the role of the Red Bird, a character who turns up in some of the acrobatic sequences and helps guide the audience through the transitions.

"That's given me a whole fresh new start," she says. "It would be a different story if I wasn't playing one of the main roles now."

She also got married in the summer of 2000, to a 3-D animator from New York.

"This is a lonely city if you don't have someone you can go home to," she says.

Now the two have a house that's physically and psychologically "far from the Strip."

"I just can't believe that almost the whole cast has changed," Chao says. "I've had so many friends come and go. That's the hard part, really."

If she hadn't been promoted, she might have been one of them. Now, she plans to be there "until my legs fall off."

The clown

"I always said to my children, `You will always regret not doing something but you will never regret doing it,' " Dewhurst says.

The Englishman and his children have done many things, including a family tightrope act. In the late '80s, Dewhurst was running on a parallel track with Cirque. He created a similar effort in his homeland, Circus Senso, until he allowed the larger company to woo him over.

Dewhurst and his children, Nicky and Sally, all came to town as performers in "Nouvelle Experience," the Cirque production that played The Mirage in 1992 and 1993, paving the way for "Mystere."

The new show opened without a tightrope act, so Dewhurst moved backstage to become the artistic coordinator. His son worked in other revues on the Strip and his daughter became a Cirque publicist.

Nicky Dewhurst remembers thinking: "I guess he's done. I didn't see a way for us to perform together again."

The artistic coordinator handles the thankless task of overseeing the maintenance of the show, and keeping the cast healthy and happy, while trying to preserve the original vision.

"It gives you an appreciation for the other side," Brian Dewhurst says. "What we don't see is the talent behind the artists: the technicians and wardrobe people, the stage management. ... It's enlightening when you go to the other side and see that and get involved in it."

But after a time, Dewhurst had trouble "keeping focus," realizing, "I'm not doing anything anymore, I'm just watching it. It needs a fresh face and a fresh eye on it."

There's another thing. "I'm a ham," he says. Working behind the scenes, "I didn't get anything like the fulfilment you get when you perform."

And there was another thing still. His wife, Julie, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

"She was like the mother of Cirque for a long time," Sally Dewhurst says. After a year's illness, Julie Dewhurst died the day "O" opened at the Bellagio in October 1998.

Brian Dewhurst had been working at Bellagio to help open "O," but after a few months was asked by Gilles Ste-Croix, Cirque's "director of creation," if he would consider going back into "Mystere" as the clown who brings the show into the audience.

"I said I'll come over and try it one day," Dewhurst recalls, telling Ste-Croix, "Let me be the judge of whether I can do it or not."

There was an added incentive to being the oldest performer in any Cirque production. His son had rejoined "Mystere" as the comic ringmaster, allowing father and son to interact as clown and straight man.

"I think it keeps him young. He's got an amazing amount of energy," his daughter says. "It's just sad that my mom didn't get to see them together."

Nicky Dewhurst says that those who stay in the Cirque world "are those who go, `This is my life. This is all I know.' " So they adapt, he says. "They stop back-flipping, and start doing character work."

"The thing with Cirque," he adds, "is that you're allowed to grow, if you have the ambition and the drive."

On that, father and son agree. The show is "very brave in trying new things," Brian Dewhurst says. "It's developed and developed and it's still developing. We still try new things."

Nicky Dewhurst, left, and his father Brian Dewhurst work as a father-and-son team of clowns in the long-running "Mystere." Both were part of Cirque du Soleil when it first came to Las Vegas.

The hand-balancing team of Marco Lorador, top, and Paulo Lorador has been part of "Mystere" for five years.

The cast completes the finale of "Mystere," Cirque du Soleil's first nontouring show. "That was a big step for Cirque, putting a lot of money into a big theater," says Natasha Chao, who plays the Red Bird, sixth from left. "But it worked. And we're here nine years later."

The Chinese pole act has been a trademark of "Mystere" from the beginning.

Photos by Jeff Scheid.

what: "Mystere"
when: 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays
where: Treasure Island, 3300 Las Vegas Blvd. South
tickets: $88 (800-392-1999)