By Carol Davis
LAS VEGAS–If you’re looking for spectacular, eye popping, lip drooling, utter amazement and sheer pleasurable entertainment drop in at the Wynn Resort on the Vegas Strip in Las Vegas and catch La Rêve (The Dream). you won’t be disappointed.
Created by ex Cirque creator, Franco Dragone, the show is now in its fifth year and I can’t imagine anyone not seeing it on his or her next trip to Vegas.
Le Rêve is the ultimate underwater show in the round you will see in some time. Dragone whose prints are on “Mystere”, and “O” has taken “Le Rêve” (this is not a Cirque show) to the next level and it is one engrossing and awe inspiring experience under Brian Burke’s nifty direction.
Le Rêve, which gets its name from a 1932 Picasso painting showing a woman sleeping on a chair starts off pretty much with a woman and her lover embracing. When they part, she walks off on to a platform, snuggles into a chair, and falls asleep. Before our eyes she is submerged into the water. (There is a million gallon tank that allows performers both sea and sky access). The show then proceeds to follow her through a series of dream cycles some of which are happy, some bizarre, some controversial, some sad and some pretty sexy.
What makes the show (at least in part) as versatile as it is, is the multi tasking and athletic acumen of aerial acrobats, ‘synchronized swimming performances’, detailed and complex balancing acts, underwater fêtes (a la Esther Williams with just high heels exposed to us) characters entering from the audience some slithering into the water and clowns (more in keeping with the recurring clowns in most Cirque shows) all in synchronized movements to composer and musical director Benoit Jutras and lyricist Mark Goodwin’s sensual, oft times fun but overall ear pleasing musical score in keeping with the many dream, love and dance (Giuliano Peparini, choreographed with Maksim Chmerkovsky) sequences.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention that Claude Bernard designed 1,250 costumes and Carmen Arbues Miro designed the makeup, some of which was quite outlandish. Bottom line, there is so much to this show, so much to take in that words can never describe it all.
Dragone has won international acclaim ‘from the ten shows he created for Cirque du Soleil to Celine Dion’s “A New Day’, to the ‘Disneyland Paris Cinema Parade’. He has won three Obie Awards and the Los Angeles Critics Circle Award for outstanding achievement.
Wynn custom built the aquatic theatre in the round to accommodate the seventy-four or so artists from seventeen different countries. The stage rises and falls from the water ‘creating different platforms and spaces’. There is an eighty seven foot high, high dive with water fountains that lure you into thinking everything is peaceful under water but in reality, there are frogman who help the face down underwater dancers breathe.
There are over sixteen hundred seats in the theatre “in a spectacular but intimate setting”. No one is more than 12 rows up from the water. The seating is another story in itself. There is, what’s called, a splash zone (if you are familiar with Sea World? But not so much), which is up close and personal. If you do sit there you will literally be almost on top of the show. That would be a defining moment.
But no matter where you sit be prepared to have a stunningly wonderful experience.
See you at the theatre.
Dates: Open
Organization: Wynn Corporation
Phone: 1-800-947-1081
Where: Wynn Resort
Ticket Prices: Check for deals
Web: wynnlasvegas.com
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Theatre critic Davis is based in San Diego