"You are not an employee of Cirque du Soleil, I am," Denoncourt said, looking directly at Angel. "I did that show with Criss Angel. He wrote it, I rewrote it with him. I didn't impose anything on him. It was teamwork."
Angel's trailblazing within the prescribed infrastructure of Cirque du Soleil is hardly a sure bet. Early buzz from preview shows -- which Cirque productions rely upon to diagnose problems and implement sweeping changes right up until the grand opening -- has been withering.
On Sept. 29, Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Doug Elfman published a story quoting audience members who had flown in from as far away as London to see a preview performance of "Believe." "The verdict by many?" Elfman wrote. "Creatively, 'Believe' is a possibly unsalvageable 'waste of time' and a 'dead end' that literally bored some audience members to sleep."
Even before the early negative fan commentary started, Jeff McBride pointed out expectations on the Vegas Strip were sky high for "Believe." "This must deliver the greatest magic show that's ever been. It's built up to this," McBride said. "The last big show in the showbiz capital of the world was Siegfried & Roy" -- whose run was cut short when a white tiger mauled Roy Horn in 2003. "It either tops that [show] or it fails," the magician continued.
Would you 'Believe'?
Scheduled TO be performed 4,600 times in the Luxor's 1,600-capacity theater (which has been revamped with a gilded steampunk aesthetic), "Believe" begins with a set piece involving "Mindfreak" before switching gears. It follows a Victorian gentleman (Angel) who must navigate surrealistic, sometimes sexually aggressive tableaux vivant peopled by monsters and dolls, lovers and killing machines. As he searches for love and cheats death, the magician finds time to escape a straitjacket while suspended dozens of feet above the audience, appears to allow a dancer to crawl directly through his torso, get cut in half by a giant buzz saw and even be pulled out of a giant top hat by the show's comedic leitmotif, a rabbit.
Dance is a central component of the spectacle, choreographed by Wade Robson, the Emmy-winning pop-dance wunderkind who's best known for choreographing segments on several seasons of "So You Think You Can Dance" and Britney Spears' "I'm a Slave 4 U" video. Over a year-and-a-half-long process, he vetted "Believe's" hundreds of hopefuls down to the final 14 who appear onstage.
