Friday, May 23, 2003 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

SHOW REVIEW: Gans rests on the laurels of his perfected show

Impressionist adds precious few voices in three years at The Mirage

Danny Gans impersonates former president Bill Clinton as part of his show at The Mirage. REVIEW-JOURNAL FILE PHOTO Danny Gans in the spotlight at the Mirage.

When impressionist Danny Gans opened at The Mirage three years and one month ago, he claimed his show was always being updated and tinkered with.

"He says there's a Macy Gray impression ready when the crowd is," I wrote on April 7, 2000.

Catching up to his show again last week, the crowd obviously got ready at some point. Gray and her 1999 hit "I Try" have made their way into Gans' arsenal of some 60 voices.

And that's about all.

The rest was more or less what I saw opening week, complete with impressions of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and even Ross Perot, who at age 72 is (optimistically?) introduced as "the man who might one day become president of the United States."

The current president is still missing from Gans' repertoire, though I think Father Bush made an appearance. It could have been Bob Hope though, as it was not one of Gans' most accurate voices.

The only other voice I didn't hear last time was that of Jeff Foxworthy, which allowed Gans to incorporate a huge chunk of the comedian's "You might be a redneck ..." routine, which is still as funny as it was in 1993.

He does mention Nelly, but only as part of a George Burns bit. And he has updated his Michael Jackson spoof to incorporate the child-dangling balcony episode.

But for the most part, Gans must count himself lucky that Anthony Hopkins did a third Hannibal Lecter movie, or that Hootie & the Blowfish is rallying a comeback and playing the Stratosphere this weekend.

Otherwise it would be even more obvious the impressionist has been far too busy in the past six years to catch a movie, or flip on the TV or radio.

Now, at this point you could be asking -- as Gans surely is -- the big question: Who says an impressionist has to be topical? Is there any law that the act has to keep up with Adam Sandler, "Lord of the Rings" or "Everybody Loves Raymond"?

Gans' answer is obviously no, and it's supported by the similar unwillingness of Andre-Philippe Gagnon, his Paris Las Vegas counterpart, to keep up with the times.

This belief must be a majority opinion, judging by the standby line for Gans tickets every night, and the retirement-aged people who walk out saying things such as, "My jaw hurts from laughing so much." Or, "I would pay ($100) to see that again."

Still, I'll stubbornly stand by my prejudice that a show that mixes and matches pop-culture touchstones -- Frank Sinatra singing "Hakuna Matata" and whatnot -- should try to keep up with those touchstones. And I'm willing to bet at least a few jaws hurt more when Gans came to town in 1996, and the "Hootie and the Bloated Fish" and "Lion King" stuff was only a couple of years old, than they do now.

At the same time, I'll readily concede that what Gans offers instead is a form of perfection. An act so carefully crafted and polished that at some point it was declared too perfect to tinker with anymore.

They didn't just come overnight, those masterful pendulum swings of the opening minutes: The falsetto Smokey Robinson that shifts to the gruff bark of Joe Cocker, then back to the silky Temptations before downshifting again to James Brown and Ray Charles.

It's an act that at one point sought subjects who hadn't been imitated before, such as Al Jarreau and Aaron Neville. And one that mixed comedy, of a fashion -- Garth Brooks singing "I Lost Weight in Low Places" -- with irony-free, drama-class rendition of the climactic Al Pacino speech in "Scent of a Woman."

It's one that even builds in its spontaneous moments, such as the impressionist's 86-year-old father serenading the crowd with "Singin' in the Rain," or a shout from the audience derailing an Elvis bit into Austin Powers and Dr. Evil voices.

Still, it's a bit like watching a magic show. A second visit, even three years later, reveals cracks in the surface you didn't notice the first time. Kermit the Frog was killer, but that sure didn't sound like Andy Rooney. Doing both Nat and Natalie Cole is a showstopper, but a lot of guys do a better Jack Nicholson. And wasn't the Earth, Wind & Fire voice the same as the Anita Baker?

And while Gans sings effortlessly in character -- you could listen to a whole song in that Baker/EWF voice -- he has a little more trouble finding his own voice, judging by the autobiographical "The Journey's Here at Home" or a "Phantom of the Opera" tune that wavered between Lecter and Charles Laughton's "Hunchback of Notre Dame."

Sometimes, you wonder if maybe Gans is a little bored with perfection himself. If, now that the excitement of shaping and honing the act is gone, he's sometimes thinking about his golf game and letting slip his fine control of detail, such as Dean Martin's body language.

I can't know for sure, because to do so I'd have to live in a world where critics are still calling Harry Connick Jr. the next Sinatra, and Michael McDonald is still "one of the most respected voices in pop music."

And unlike the majority of Gans' satisfied customers, that's just not where I dwell.