Cirque du Soleil: “One”-plus

Media previews are a double-edged sword. They can be a cheap way of drumming up advance press but can also betray a project in trouble: Surf the Musical was obviously going to be dead on arrival. And it was. Given its arid recent history in Las Vegas, the directorate of Cirque du Soleil would be forgiven for feeling a certain amount of trepidation when it rolled out four numbers from Michael Jackson ONE for assembled media at Mandalay Bay. True, the crowd included some of the cheapest, most syphilitic quote-whores in town, but longtime readers will know I mean it when I say that Cirque finally has a winner on its hands, if these early indications are correct.

Now if, like me, you suffered through Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour, put that abomination out of your mind. You would be hard-put to recognize more than a few vestiges of it in director Jamie King‘s new, steam-punk incarnation. The set is a three-story skeleton of girders, bisected down the middle by a giant armature, festooned with cables and video screens. Throw in some characters in “encounter suits” right out of the films of Ridley Scott and the vibe is more than a little sinister. True, the creepy, affectless, giant baby in the balloon might still put in an appearance. Ditto the human-sized Bubbles the Chimp (arguably the single most-derided vestige of the touring show). Jacko himself is no longer represented as an albino, but the white-clad Tintin lookalike who is now MJ’s avatar isn’t much of an improvement.

Even “Smooth Criminal,” one of the inarguable successes of the tour has been re-imagined. Gone are the zoot suits, rocket packs and original graphics. (Michael Jackson ONE is far less reliant on video than was the touring show.) Aerialists, dancers and singers are generally put to better use all around. The infamous John Merrick skeleton and oxygen chamber put in brief appearances during “Tabloid Jive,” but kudos to Cirque for acknowledging the Elephant Man in the room. And “Bad” gets an ironic spin, its protagonist being neither the least bit bad nor baaaaad. (The only glove seen was life-size, not the multi-man starfish that perplexed Immortal spectators.)  The lines of Mandalay Bay’s theater have been left largely intact and the sound system has been upgraded. Compared to the cheap, tinny, low-fi mix that afflicted Viva Elvis, everything here has directionality and presence. Alas, Cirque has succumbed to the Vegas habit of burying solo vocals under the accompaniment. Oh, and the media horde was assailed by two phalanxes of faux paparazzi. Ah, meta-commentary upon the event: C’est drole.