CRISS ANGEL BeLIEve is actually two shows in one: An exhibition of illusions by popular magician Criss Angel (star of the TV show Criss Angel Mindfreak) and a truly surreal spectacular by Cirque du Soleil, who practically dominate the Vegas strip with their abundance of shows—BeLIEve is their sixth, and unusual in being built around an individual performer.
“Spooky,” murmured an audience member as he gazed at the stage. The beautiful theater at the Luxor Casino creates an eerie atmosphere that blurs luxury and decay. Lush red velvet curtains hang down from an ornate proscenium arch adorned with macabre sculptures of leering rabbits. Smoke drifts around an elegant Victrola record player on the stage, while in the house a quartet of creepy pale-faced men in bowler hats roam to and fro, offering popcorn and emitting odd shrieks. They provide pre-show entertainment by improvising with the audience and performing comic routines (including some good-natured mockery of the soon-to-appear star).
After an introductory video montage of his previous stunts and magic effects, Angel levitates down, taking the stage like a rock star, dressed in the suitably grungy attire of ratty jeans and a black t-shirt. He disappears from the stage and reappears among the audience. He has an audience member offer up any word in the English language, which he then pulls from a locked chest, along with the person’s name and home state. But after these successful tricks, things seem to go off the rails as Angel gets into a fight with a tall camerawoman who’s been recording his performance. But when Angel launches into his next stunt—involving a massive Tesla coil in a cage—the fight is revealed to be part of the show as this camerawoman sabotages the trick, electrocuting Angel.
From here, the show gets deliciously weird. Rabbit- and raven-headed dancers take over the stage, tearing apart Angel’s electrified body. The bowler-hatted clowns play catch with Angel’s head. Angel gets revived, of course, in a suitably over-the-top way, but the camerawoman—who has transmogrified into a demonic succubus—continues to battle Angel throughout the show, even as strange dolls, giant rabbits, giant flowers, creatures that are part mole and part anteater (pangolins, perhaps?), and red-spined devils periodically swarm the stage and perform acrobatic dances. The show’s flavor blends Tim Burton, Neil Gaiman, and Salvador Dali; the imagery is significantly stranger than other Cirque du Soleil shows, which should appeal to more adventurous audiences.
The conflict between Angel and the succubus reaches its climax when the devil-woman ruins Angel’s wedding to his lovely assistant, Kayala (who also performs as an aerialist earlier in the evening). Backed by an army of dancing paparrazi, the succubus finally captures Angel and, in a scene that seems straight out of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, strings the magician up and...but to reveal what happens next would ruin half the fun of BeLIEve. BeLIEve defies expectations and offers a wealth of surprising and unusual pleasures.
—August Evans
