As critical as it may seem that I can be, I’m actually a pretty easy customer. I calibrate my expectations appropriately, I give an enormous amount of benefit of the doubt, and I approach every new experience with genuine hope that I’ll enjoy it.
The trouble with this is that I sometimes begin to worry that I’m going soft. In the past couple of months, I’ve come away from a litany of new Vegas experiences with such over-the-moon impressions (The Palazzo is lovely! Double Or Nothing is a fun read! The steak at Stack is sensational! Bette is, indeed, divine! Jersey Boys is brilliant!) that I wondered if maybe I’d forgotten how to dislike anything.
And then there was Cher.
There are only two other occasions when I left a Vegas theater as angry as I was upon departing the May 6 opening night of the newest Colosseum headliner. Those occasions, in case you wonder, were the overhyped Hans Klok/Pamela Anderson fiasco at Planet Hollywood and the waste-of-great-talent We Will Rock You at Paris. The rush-job Barry Manilow show at the Hilton was almost a third instance, except that I was with my mother, and she adored every bit of it. So I forgave.
By the time I got home to write up a painstakingly balanced piece for USA Today that evening, I had started to calm down. I sat with my husband (who didn’t go) and vented for a few minutes, then started to realize it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had thought. Everything that was wrong, I discovered, was pretty easily fixable.
Except that I’m not so sure that AEG and Caesars Palace will fix it, or why they should bother. Cher has sold out her first set of shows and is selling so well for her next stint in August that they’ve added a few dates. I met enough crazy Cher fanatics that night who had spent thousands amid a recession to come and see her not once but as many as six times this month. These are people who would mortgage their houses if they hadn’t already been foreclosed on just to watch this idol read a John McCain speech. (I’ve never been one of those gays, but I respect the woman’s talent.)
That, I think, is where my ire comes from. I love the Colosseum. I love what it’s done for Las Vegas, I love its grandeur, I love its odd shape and size, I love its significance as an exclusive room only a select few who have achieved a certain level of greatness may play.
Cher treats it like a fancy Madison Square Garden rather then Carnegie Hall West. If the show remains as it is—and I really hope they aren’t done yet—she will be responsible for degrading the Colosseum’s majesty. Acts that follow won’t feel the obligation Elton John and Bette Midler felt to do something with the space that honors the bar set by Queen Celine.
Fact is, Cher decided she could get by with a gussied-up version of her endless farewell concert. That’s too bad, but I doubt that approach will change in any meaningful way since it’s so fundamental.
Still, I have some suggestions, and I hope someone over there takes them to heart. Perhaps by the time this piece appears, seven shows into the run, some of these points may be moot. But I sincerely doubt it.
But if someone over there has an open mind, here are four points worth considering:
• Fewer Bob Mackie costumes, more Cher. Yes, they’re very pretty and fun to look at and can only be donned by this particular woman. But they also get redundant, and, more importantly, they force her into constant (and probably complex) costume changes. All the while, we’re babysat—for $250+ a seat—by videos that are also available on YouTube or, surely, in the DVD box set of The Sonny & Cher Show.
Any show driven by style rather than talent—or any show that feels like that—is problematic. I understand that the wardrobe swaps are time-consuming because they’re not as easy as slipping something off and on, but then Cher should stay longer than one or two songs in each and give us more of herself and the terrific, battle-scar-weary personality we came for and relate to. As it is, there’s no time for any sense of this woman. This is supposed to be a career-capper, the doctoral thesis of Cher. As Britney might sing, gimme more.
• Drop the knock-off bits from Cirque du Soleil. Like Hans Klok before her, Cher seems not to have done her due diligence in the neighborhood. That two-hunks-balancing-one-another act? Mystère. The aerial sheet-flying thing? Zumanity.
Celine was inspired to do her show by O. Elton John made it evident he has a love for Vegas schlock. And Bette and choreographer Toni Basil saw every last other Vegas show—even the ones with animal tricks—as they designed their offering. When sequences are already done—and done better—at shows in neighboring hotels, you know Cher and her peeps didn’t bother to check out the competition. That’s arrogant.
• For the love of GOD, drop the YMCA. Yes, they do this. With Village People impersonators. And no Cher. The whole song, dance and all. Tacky, tacky, tacky. And not in a good, how-’70s way. Fire whoever thought this was a smart idea. Now.
• You’re in the Colosseum; act like it. This is the most prestigious theater in the western U.S., not any ol’ concert venue. Celine set the standard, being close to but somehow above her audience in a manner that made her seem more elegant, more old-school star-like. Slapping the hands of the audience? Maybe not. Confusing them about whether they can get up and dance? Get with security to work that out. Forcing the crowd to stand up and cheer for five minutes for an encore they know is coming because you’ve yet to get to your biggest hit? Insulting.
Why should they listen to me? Because the people around me at the Colosseum were similarly disgruntled. The most vocal Cher fans won’t criticize a thing, but when word gets out that this is a $250-a-pop Cher-scored Bob Mackie fashion show, those curious but less passionate may just decide to catch two Cirque shows and rent Moonstruck when they get home.
Head to ReadVegas.com to read Steve Friess’ daily blog, Vegas Happens Here, or catch his weekly celeb-interview podcast, The Strip. He can be reached at [email protected].
Illustration by Ming Doyle