This is no way to run a show. Unless that show is Absinthe.
“I can’t keep up with what’s going on. I have no idea. We have no plan,” Ross Mollison, the roguish “Improssario” and founder of Spiegelworld, says when assessing his company’s jewel production. “It’s management by haphazard luck.”
Maybe, but Mollison is not the gent you’d want to challenge to a night of Texas Hold ’Em, or, if you will, Crazy Eights. Forever plucking the winning cards from his socks, Mollison has presided over an unqualified hit at Caesars Palace. Absinthe has been a critical success since it opened at Roman Plaza in April 2011. The show’s reinforced and light-trimmed tent is routinely filled, or nearly so. It demonstrates no signs of flagging, even though most of the cast has turned over since Absinthe set up in Vegas.
“We feel a lot of the success is our constant change, which is opposite what any sane person would do when running a show,” Mollison says. “Usually, you keep with what works. We’ve built a show that has been as good as it gets, yet is constantly changing. It makes no sense, but the show is still great and is still doing great business.”
The most prominent shift in the onstage presentation since Absinthe opened is the November departure of character Penny Pibbets, the production’s seemingly indispensable cohost. Pibbets resurfaced swiftly, developing her own one-woman gig showcased for three weeks in December and January at Art Square Theater.
The Penny Pibbets Show rekindled the inspired moments and effects of Pee Wee’s Playhouse, with Pibbets working the audience in the 100-seat theater, performing manic monologues and teaching the antiquated art of sock puppetry. There was the aggressive application of makeup during a self-help oration, followed by a plume of talcum powder so thick, audience members were sent into spasms of coughing and laughing. Pibbets’ show caused something of a ripple across the entertainment scene, as room operators on the Strip took notice and mulled how and when to possibly stage The Penny Pibbets Show as a resident show.
Not so fast, though. Having been replaced in the show by the character Joy Jenkins (who is Pibbets-like in her disposition and delivery and billed as Penny’s cousin), Pibbets is heading for the touring version of Absinthe. She is scheduled to perform as part of the show’s opening cast. “That’s how we’ve planned to do it, anyway,” Mollison says. “But we could go three shows in and Gaz [the Gazillionaire] could fire her again. She’s a great talent, but not much of an assistant.”
The Improssario is reciting his own plotted explanation of why Pibbets stepped away from Absinthe at Caesars, but still remains part of the Spiegelworld family. Conversely, the Gaz character remains and can be portrayed onstage by an assortment of artists. There will be an Australian Gazillionaire, adopting the crappy French accent and verbally flaying audience members seated in the front row, same as on the Strip.
The touring version of the show has been rehearsing in Las Vegas and opens next month in a spiegeltent in Newcastle. It will spend four weeks there, then move to Crown Perth, the luxury hotel operated by James Packer’s Crown Resorts. After a three-month stay in Perth, Absinthe will tour that country. The show will be similar to Absinthe on the Strip for its representation of characters, but with some new acts in the mix. Mollison is fired up about an aerial act in a cage (who wouldn’t be?) and a parallel-bar routine that will take the place of the Frat Pack high-wire bit that closes the show at Caesars.
Meanwhile, the other major Spiegelworld production, Vegas Nocturne, exists, but in a sort of comatose state. The adult comedy-circus has been latent since closing last July at Rose. Rabbit. Lie. The show’s title and a couple of its featured acts were resurrected in a showcase in New York City, but it has not returned in full since it left Cosmopolitan, a fractured partnership that has resulted in a yet-unresolved volley of lawsuits.
“With Vegas Nocturne, we want to make it the absolute best it can be for the partnership we’re in, and we are looking at opportunities not just in Vegas,” Mollison says. “We need partners who are simpatico with what we want to do. Right now, we’re waiting to see how Vegas plays out, because there are a lot of new things coming to the city, some very big shows like the Frank Sinatra show [Frank: The Man, The Music] at the Palazzo, and ShowStoppers [at Encore Theater].”
On this point, Mollison allows, “We want to make a decision that is the right decision.” From Improssario and Gazillionaire and the rest of the Spiegelworld power brokers, the right decision for the inactive Nocturne will require some planning. But where’s the fun in that? In the meantime, just pour another shot of Absinthe.
