Thanks to last night’s episode of Dancing with the Stars, all America knows that Cirque du Soleil has unleashed a campy, fugly Elvis Presley “tribute” show upon the Strip. (I wonder which of the six credited choreographers was responsible for the number performed?) Truth be told, it actually “plays” far better on the DWTS set than at Aria, where it’s crammed — shoehorned, one might say — onto a shallow, overstuffed proscenium stage. Happily, Cirque left the giant blue suede shoe — the size of a compact car — back in Vegas.
While Viva Elvis might have engendered better opening-night reviews had “Blue Suede Shoes” been more pure dance and less “Cirquetry” (as Las Vegas Weekly‘s Joe Brown dubbed the shtick), at least one viewer got a premonition of the candy-colored glop that is Viva Elvis‘ prevailing aesthetic. Wrote TelevisionWithoutPity.com member o2Sean: “I don’t remember even those day-glo Elvis movies having people who looked like they were rejected from the Legion of Superheroes circa the Saturn Girl bikini era. What did any of that even have to do with Elvis?”
What indeed?
great post as usual!