Las Vegas Review: Cirque du Soleil's LOVE

Cirque du Soleil’s Love launched in Las Vegas in 2006 and features music from the Beatles that dates back almost a half-century.  However, this tour de force shows no signs of aging; it’s a gorgeous multi-media masterpiece, a Vegas gamble on which you can’t lose.

From the moment the doors are opened at the custom-built Love theatre (a 2,013-seat space at The Mirage Casino, presented in the round), an eerie, otherworldly tone is set.  Several screens separate the seats into four quadrants; the air is smoky and colored with blue light.  A strange costumed character, a peculiar kind of clown, sneaks up on patrons as they find their seats, blowing puffs of mist on them from an antique lamp.  Almost before they can react, he has scampered away to his next victims, easing the audience’s transition from the clanging, overly-bright world of Las Vegas into the fictional land of Love.

There are 26 musical numbers in the production, all created from The Beatles familiar catalogue.  Despite the ubiquity of the songs, there is nothing tired about the sound.   Cirque made a smart move in collaborating with Sir George Martin, producer of all but one of the Beatles original records, who arranged the music for Love; in doing so, the production earned the approval of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as the living spouses of the late John Lennon and George Harrison (all of whom attended the show’s premiere in June 2006).  Martin incorporated original recordings from Abbey Road Studios, including unreleased versions of The Beatles hits as well as original session dialogue that had never before been released. The soundtrack alone (available on CD from Capitol Records) is a gorgeous sonic tribute to The Beatles.  And with speakers mounted within the headrest of each seat, an individualized “surround sound” experience expands each audience member’s total involvement with the music.

True to Cirque du Soleil tradition, every scene unveils performers appearing in surprising ways and from a multitude of levels – from deep below the stage via elevator or trampoline, from ramps and wires along the periphery of the space, from trapezes and silks flown in from impossible heights over the audience’s heads.  They ride in on bicycles and skates; they bound in on stilts and under heavy robes.  Sometimes they are disguised as flowers or pieces of furniture; in one marvelous moment, they “drive” themselves onstage in a vintage VW bug, only to reveal that they are in fact carrying pieces of the car’s exterior, which deconstructs as they dance their fanciful dance.

Like all Cirque shows, the visuals in Love are highly stylized, at once whimsical and slightly disconcerting (I was reminded more than once of Tim Burton).  Certain scenes are simple and lovely, featuring aerialists, trampoline-jumpers and supernaturally acrobatic roller-skaters.  Other moments are packed full of frenzied activity; there is too much to look at, but in a good way.  In both cases, there is no shortage of details to discover, from exotic costumery (stilts made from trombones; a human dressed as a functioning accordion; helmets designed to look like Beatles haircuts) to delightful props (teacups that, when raised to the lips, reveal themselves to be bubble blowers) to brilliant staging devices (a line of tiny tricycles, pedaling themselves across the stage with child-sized, empty red rubber boots).

While there is a loose storyline – recognizable characters from Beatles lore like Mr. Kite and Lucy in the Sky make appearances – the show dissolves into a brilliant visual soup of otherworldly delights, and plot becomes superfluous.

The entire show is entrancing, a 90-minute spectacle that transports the audience into a kind of Wonderland that I, for one, did not want to leave.  With the timelessness of the Beatles music, the ageless and unusual design, and the weird and wonderful acrobatics for which Cirque du Soliel is known, Love could easily continue playing, and delighting audiences, for another fifty years.