If you should go to this Cirque du Soliel show in Vegas, definitely pay more for seats about midway away from the stage. Our $108 seats were too far back (row MM), because this is a big theater and because the lighting on this show is dark, way too dark in many of the scenes. At points I felt like my eyesight was failing. I've seen all but two of the Cirque shows in Vegas and never had this problem before. To give you some idea -- The main singer (besides Jackson's recorded voice), (at least I think she was singing..I couldn't see her face because of the dim light and distance to her), floated overhead on a moon in parts of the show, and I could barely tell she was a woman and black, at least I think she was!
Although there were a couple of good numbers in the show, there were also some bad ones, and overall this was definitely the worst Cirque show I've seen (worse than the now departed Elvis at the Aria). (At times I said to myself, 'this show is BAD' while watching).
The fact that the lighting was too dim and our distant seats didn't help, but some of scenes/numbers were dull or senseless or both. One problem was the lack of coherent theme or story or perhaps that the Jackson songs and footage should have been in chronological order. The whole seemed disjointed, and in some footage MJ was a child, then an adult, then a child again, which seemed strange.
I like many of MJ's songs, but some of the song choices in the show seemed poor. Also some of the acrobatic skills of the performers were lost by the production style itself, which seemed more intent on dazzling us with lights and video footage than highlighting the cast's abilities, such as when aerial performers were decked out with colored lights like Christmas trees, so you mostly saw moving lights and could barely tell they were on gymnasts performing intricate aerial maneuvers -- it was pretty, but the acrobatics were minimized. It seemed like in the emphasis was on the pretty lights and screen shots <and MJ of course> Cirque forgot to do much of what it does best, provide stunning acrobatic/aerial/circus-derived spectacle scenes.
The standout scenes were an acrobatic tumbling act on a floor that seemed incredibly bouncy (and actually was revealed as such), Thriller Combined with trampolines, "Smile", "Man in the Mirror" with a holographic-looking MJ dancing along (not really a hologram by the way) in the dim light, and a pole dance to "Dangerous" that could have shown up in the erotic Cirque show Zumanity.
Of course you have to be a Jackson fan of some sort to like spending two hours listening to his music and his voice (amplified and sometimes mixed with Cirque singers), and this show did a better job of putting his "presence" into the show than the Elvis show put in Elvis. But to me one of Cirque's problems in doing a show revolved around an individual or band (Beatles) is that sometimes they take things too literally or try too hard to weave themes or scenes based on the person they are tributing. Here for example, Jackson was known for his hats, so they juggle hats, but they overdo it by repeating it in two scenes. Jackson was known for his glove, so they have a comic fighting with a glove come to life, which was well done and funny but didn't fit in with the rest of the show. <Here's an example from Love of what I mean, the Beatles group broke up so they literally had a VW beetle car break into four pieces -- too literal and thus silly in my opinion.>
The costumes looked great, what I could see of the in the dim lighting ... and the sound system was good.
One Cirque flaw, here and in other shows like Love and Elvis, is that where there are dance numbers, the dancers really don't dance (perhaps because they are acrobats or perhaps because of Cirque choreography?) -- they stomp, stride, bend, strut, march, move their arms, jump (sometimes wonderfully high), but all too often when some real dancing would be called for, they aren't really dancing (you know, the smooth sliding or tapping or ballet whatever it is that Fred Astaire or the cast of any Broadway musical does that we call "dancing"), whatever it is they are doing is athletic and looks good and in sync but it sometimes real dancing could make a number look so much better.
The second half of the show was better than the first, but despite a few good numbers I cannot recommend this to anyone (even with perfect seats). Cirque has much better shows in O (my favorite), Ka, and Love (flawed for me, but filled with great Beatles music and some really good numbers). And real Michael Jackson fans probably would enjoy more spending two hours watching his videos or "This is It.". ...at least I know I would (and I'm sorry I didn't do just that...).°
