Friday, May 07, 2004 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

SHOW REVIEW: Six summers later, 'O' still delights and amazes

Cirque du Soleil plans to top itself at MGM Grand, but that shouldn't hurt long-running Bellagio show

"O" offers a mix of surreal theater and acrobatics that brought Cirque du Soleil to a watershed when the aquatic show opened in late 1998. The Barge, as it's known in "O," is one example of Cirque's knack for restaging circus acts in unusual surroundings.

Hard to believe, but this, the sixth summer of "O," will be its last as Las Vegas' crowning achievement in show technology. That's progress on the Strip for you.

Cirque du Soleil plans to top itself next fall with a still-unnamed opus at the MGM Grand. The company took a deliberate sidestep with "Zumanity" -- putting sex over software -- but won't risk that again. The MGM show is described as "an architectural experience" with 275 "automation axes," compared to 85 in "O."

But just as the Bellagio's "O" failed to put a damper on Treasure Island's "Mystere," don't expect to see audiences pulling the plug on the giant bathtub of a stage that forms the centerpiece of "O."

The new show may even push this one in a new direction. The only real criticism of "O" versus "Mystere" is that the water spectacle keeps its audience at a distance -- physical and sometimes emotional -- and frames the human derring-do in such pastoral dreaminess that you might forget any real risk is involved.

Having a new show trump its technological marvels may only force "O" to further amplify its human heartbeat. The show already seems a little warmer than it did in its 1998 opening, particularly in the more "Americanized" clowns (at least, for guys named Valery Keft and Leonid Leykin) who periodically float in on a sunken house.

But "O" should be allowed to flaunt its stagecraft for another few months, for it has always done so with true panache. If you're throwing down $150 you better be impressed. This one tries to guarantee it.

When "O" opened, co-creators Franco Dragone and Gilles Ste-Croix were asked what was the most difficult of the myriad technical challenges. Their reply was surprising: "The curtain."

The 60-foot red curtain is part of the opera house design that lulls the audience into a netherworldly mood and offers a surprise or two even before the actual beginning. A hand beckons an audience surrogate (P.J. Bogart) to discover what lies behind the curtain, then more forcefully pulls him into the action.

Then the curtain itself billows and whooshes into the recesses of backstage, as though it's sucked into a giant vacuum cleaner. That allows the first look at the 150-by-100-foot pool that forms the central stage. It's framed not just by fog but by chandeliers. Men in red waistcoats ride carousel horses over the water where female legs kick up from the surface.

As a piano and cello accompany an aerialist on a trapeze swing, "O" makes it clear that much of the circus element will be rendered in the manner of ballet, where the goal is to distract attention from the pounding feet and straining muscles, not emphasize them.

"O" saves other moments of pure stagecraft bravado for later. At one point, the entire stage "dries up," reduced to just a puddle, while rear projections briefly help create the illusion of the African Serengeti. Then, as fast as a movie dissolves to another scene, it changes back to a water show.

Showoffs.

But at other points, the acrobats are front and center. A "Russian swing" never fails to impress as the gymnast-divers build up enough momentum on pendulum-shaped contraptions to go sailing across the pond.

Hearts also race in the audience when vampy Elena Solodovnikova seduces John Maxson into climbing a never-ending ladder, until he joins other divers making the 65-foot plunge.

After "O," director Dragone made the well-publicized move of leaving Cirque to create "A New Day ..." for Celine Dion. Now, whichever show you see first will make some of the baroque, surreal elements of the other one seem familiar. For "O," it's the odd things that circle the pool: A Minotaur, a unicycle, a carriage, a hearse with a bride popping out of the casket and waving to the audience.

In light of that, it's perhaps good news that the MGM Cirque show is said to tackle a linear story line, with no random surrealism or circus performance for its own sake. "O" is the apex of the Fellini-esque circus, an end of the road, however splendid.

Watching "O" does reaffirm that technology is in good hands with Cirque. Unlike the crass products of computer-generated movie hits, Cirque's kung fu-and-puppet opus at the MGM will probably use its toys as means to an upbeat, humanized end.

Just tell yourself at the ticket window that part of your $150 goes for research and development of that vision.