All you need is love

Day 2: Dara’s birthday.

Today we walked around New York, New York, Excalibur (which was lame), and the MGM hotels before we went back to the Aladdin to get ready for Dara’s surprise show. She used her Jessica Fletcher sleuthing skill to figure out which show I bought tickets for, and so the surprise lasted only until a few hours before the show. The show we went to see was Cirque du Soleil’s “Love” which made great use of the Beatles’ music. More on that later.

We walked to the Mirage, which is the hotel that puts on the show. While waiting for the doors to open, we all waited in a psychedelic glass foyer with lit plastic sculptures and round, glass mirrors on the walls. I was leaning up against one of these mirrors, drinking my pre-show, $4, tiny bottle of water, when I heard a loud crashing sound. The mirror I was leaning against had shattered. It was a big mirror; we’re talking around 6’ diameter mirror. Shattered. Under my big ass. With hundreds of people gawking at my 7-year mistake.

My immediate thought, as the blood drained from my face, was, how much is this thing going to cost me? I was tallying up the figures in my head when the man in charge ran to my side and started apologizing profusely, expressing with frustration how the mirrors are meant to withstand the full weight of a hefty punch and still not break. I was swishing the word “lawsuit” around in my head like an aged wine when the doors opened and I sought the solitude of a dark, faceless arena to escape my embarrassment. And then I saw a show which made me totally forget my public clumsiness. Here’s what I saw:

____
Before I start, let me explain that Cirque du Soleil’s newest show involves the Beatles’ music in a unique way. There was no live band, but they weren’t just throwing on the old Abbey Road CDs either. Rather, Sir George Martin helped compile the music by going back to the original masters of these songs, remixing them and cutting them to fit the mood of the show. Sometimes you’d hear Ringo Starr singing “Octopus’s Garden” and a faint hint of “Goodnight” (another Ringo vocal vehicle) would be overlapping in a subtle, pleasing way. The versions of the classics were often much the same as the original, and sometimes, (as in the case of “While My Guitar…” which was a slowly-strummed acoustic number) they were completely different. In all cases, the songs sounded incredible, almost obscuring the visual spectacle itself. Almost.

The show opened with a quad of four young, single men who are obviously looking for love. While they walk out on the stage, edited clips of old Beatles’ studio outtakes are cleverly played to emphasize the scene, and all but one of the men find love and move on. The rest of the show is a journey of the senses, to define love and to cast the brilliance of the Beatles music on a new palette. And the brilliance shines forth almost from the first scene.

I nearly wept in my seat the minute “Because” came on. The sound was so rich and full, with speakers set 360 degrees around the theatre, not to mention built-in to the back of our headrests. From the moment the first note of “Because” sounded, the dance between visual and aural stimulation of the evening commenced. There was no lack of stimulation, to be sure; it was a feast for the eyes and the ears, as acrobats danced and dived and defied death in the way that Cirque performers have become famous for. The stage would be static one minute, and then transform almost instantly into a trampoline minefield, which set the scene for the dramatic conflict between police and protesters in an 60s-hearkening, “Revolution.” Another minute, the stage would be crowded with a circus of people, of VW Bugs that drive, and then collapse into 10 big pieces which fit like a puzzle and are carried off by performers.

But more than the stage or the props or the performers, the music would compel the story forward in a beautiful, immediate way. If there was a protagonist, it was the music itself, although there were many familiar characters, including the likes of Eleanor Rigby and her famous foil, Father McKenzie, in a particularly melancholy scene .

There was almost too much to concentrate on, visually, so my peripheral vision was put to the test, watching an often Dr. Seuss-like scene unfold, while a death-defying acrobat would flip his swing over and over again, never seeming to lose his balance. Some of the visuals were bizarre and seemed as drug-inspired as the very songs that inspired these scenes, which I found appropriate (especially during songs like “Lucy in the Sky…”).

The more I write about this, the less justice I do the show. I realize, now, the futility of describing something so sublime and intricate with something so feeble as the human word (at least in my hands). Fans of the Beatles’ music, of spectacle and magic, of the creativity of the human mind and body, will do well to go see this show. After all, you’ll want to find out if the poor man from the first scene ever finds love. I found love, and I’m glad I did.

_________
Getting back to the subject of Dara’s birthday- we came out from the show, awe-struck and smiling, and headed towards the Venetian for an expensive, but tasty meal. It was here that I started to wish that Dara’s friends and family were nearby because, on such an important occasion as a 25th birthday party, and for someone who holds such things so highly (as Dara does), having family and friends around is important. I feel bad that I couldn’t provide that for her. I wanted to do a good job in making sure she enjoyed her birthday (and she did), but if there was a cake (there wasn’t), and there was a wish (again, nope), it would probably have been to be with her friends and family. So to all of you out there who fit this category, in the words of Pink Floyd, we wish you were here.

Happy birthday my darling bride.