Neither Criss Angel nor Franco Dragone has anything to prove to Las Vegas audiences.
Whether or not you prefer his goth-horror style and industrial rock soundtrack, Angel is without question one of the most famous magicians in the world, an uncompromising performer who has headlined his own major production show on the Vegas Strip since 2006.
His collaborator on the new show Amystika at his eponymous theater at the Planet Hollywood Resort is Dragone, the celebrated stage director behind seminal Cirque du Soleil smashes Mystère and O, as well as former Strip staples A New Day (Celine Dion’s first residency) and Le Rêve. The unlikely partners have been friends for years and reunited during the pandemic to livestream a series of artist interviews to raise money for out-of-work performers.
Each has been supremely successful in Las Vegas. Creating a new show from scratch is always an incredible risk, even more so coming out of COVID. With the rapid development and launch of Amystika, it seems they have little to gain and lots to lose. So why did they do it?
The answer is in the show itself. Described as the prequel to Angel’s more magic-based Mindfreak production playing in the same room at 7 p.m., Amystika follows the story of how Long Island kid Christopher Sarantakos became Criss Angel, but the narrative is expressed in a dream-like, otherworldly way, complements of Dragone. There are tricks, loud music, lots of cool special effects and plenty of the spookiness we’ve come to expect from Angel, but it’s all balanced with a lighter, brighter, occasionally whimsical touch.
“Even though we’re still dealing with illusion and escapism and comedy and these avant-garde acts, we needed to do something that … represented what Franco is a master at, and what I’m pretty good at doing,” Angel said at a media event prior to the show’s opening on April 2.
“If you want to see what a new Cirque du Soleil show is, you have to see Amystika, because this is the man that created the Cirque du Soleil language, look and feel. Together, I think we have something special.”
Since he’s onstage all night in Mindfreak, Angel wisely shares the spotlight in Amystika with plenty of other talented performers, so much so that it feels like a Cirque-ish variety show in the first half. More magic and a refreshing dose of charming comedy come from Mike Hammer, who stars in his own show Downtown at the Four Queens, and there’s lots more from a fire artist, dancers, an aerialist, contortionists and an escape artist who innovates on Houdini’s iconic water chamber stunt.
Thanks to the incredibly expensive technological updates to the theater that have been added for both shows, there’s also an intense tornado scene that actually sweeps through the entire room and pelts the audience with debris.
“We started off with the latest and greatest technologies to innovate an experience that is truly immersive and one of a kind, but it all starts with the emotional connection,” Angel said.
And that’s the why of Amystika. Its creators wanted to get more performers back onstage, to innovate once again—this time together—in the perpetual quest to present something new for Las Vegas. But above all, they do it because that’s what they do.
“Especially today, it is more difficult than ever to bring people from their homes into the theater,” Dragone said at that same pre-opening event. “But one thing we know after COVID is that people want to get together, they want to be part of a community. This is our role as entertainers, to get people in the same place at the same time and trigger their imagination, and to do our best.”
AMYSTIKA Wednesday-Sunday, 9:30 p.m., $69-$139. Criss Angel Theater, ticketmaster.com.
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