There was a time when professional magicians donned the tux and tails, tapped a top hat with a wand and professed to make a rabbit appear from its empty interior. Voila! But tonight is not such a time. And Criss Angel is not such a magician. No, Believe is an all-encompassing exercise in intensity. And so is its star.
Criss Angel’s production at Luxor, famously the first Cirque du Soleil collaboration with a living superstar, celebrates its seventh year there on Halloween. Through a headlining residency that has often seemed as harrowing as his sky-high straitjacket escape, Angel has achieved some genuine show-business magic on the Strip simply by keeping a show afloat for this long. Some very good ones on the Boulevard, even another Cirque production (Viva Elvis at Aria), have fallen far short of that mark.
Angel’s magic empire continues to expand, too, with a series of live productions outside the Luxor. He has developed touring show The Supernaturalists, a project a decade in the making that features nine magicians of varying styles, all handpicked by Angel.Expecting that Angel’s work and attention on The Supernaturalists has come at the expense of Believe would be far off-target. Angel never halts the development and evolution of the show at the center of his professional existence, which is due for a major overhaul—and soon.
Believe survived a staggering start, and Angel himself weathered some early reviews—from audience members and the media—that would have crippled lesser individuals. The show began as a fascinating merger of Cirque’s acrobatic wizardry and the spellbinding magic of Angel, who by the opening was the universally recognized star of A&E’s Mindfreak. But the attempt to create a plot featuring ill-fated bunnies, including an oversized rabbit named Lucky, amid familiar Cirque acrobatics and elements (a version of the vertical wall from KÀ, for example) was roundly derided.
“We obviously had some big challenges, and I could have either walked away or rolled up my sleeves,” Angel says. “I said to Cirque, ‘Okay, now I’m going to try to do what I asked to do in the beginning. [They] said, ‘If you want to do five-minute tests for us to see what you would do with the show as a writer and as a director, we’ll look at it now.”
The moment was pivotal for Angel, who took control of Believe in a sink-or-swim period lasting several months. Gone were the bunnies and many of the Cirque elements, excised for Angel’s own magic creations. The show has become tighter, moves more fluidly and is doubtlessly among the more ambitious productions on the Strip today. And that solid footing has enabled Angel and Cirque to consider what the next three years of Angel’s contract with the entertainment company and the hotel will entail. Even with the constant movement in Believe, an overhaul is overdue.
“We’re in the process of working through that with Criss right now,” says Jerry Nadal, vice president of Cirque du Soleil’s resident shows. “If we were to change Believe, what is that going to look like or be called? The dynamics of the market, the demographics, have changed immensely since we opened. We’re always looking at how we can branch out and change things up, to give us a new audience, and to keep those who see the show coming back.”
That helps dispel rumors that Cirque and Angel have been working on a deal that would release him from his contract earlier than the 10-year mark. Such talk surfaced when Angel began making trips to Foxwoods (and regularly selling out the theater). But he’s determined to log at least a decade on the Strip, which would place him in a rarefied class of magicians who have prospered in this city.
{ SOURCE: Las Vegas Weekly (Edited) | http://goo.gl/bmlaoe }
