Las Vegas Road Trip: Day Four

Feb 18, 2005- Permalink

After tooling around Vegas for a few days, we decided to take a side trip to Paris. Paris Las Vegas that is. We had headed to the Franco-themed casino to catch the first theatrical performance of our trip, the Queen musical We Will Rock You.

The show sucks. I’d stop there if I was just doing a three word review but I guess I should expand upon it.

The show really sucks.

I like Queen, but this show really sells out the legacy of the band. The thin story is set in the not-so-distant future, a time when instruments have been banned and teens listen to corporate pop controlled by Global Soft and its crazed leader, the Killer Queen. A group of misfits, including a guy named Britney Spears, follow Galileo Figaro and his girlfriend, Scaramouche…man, I can’t believe I’m typing this. The story is, of course, just a thin piece of paper to staple the Queen catalogue of music to while the cast tries to recreate the magic of Freddie Mercury and the boys. Alas, they fall terribly short. Though most of the singing isn’t that bad, some of the young cast can’t perform their way out of a paper bag. The exceedingly corny jokes fall down with a thud and the lines are delivered in a manner that would shame even the worst actor failing a high school drama class. The show’s terrible pop culture references and clunky storyline make an episode of Full House read like a Noel Coward play.

In a musical where the songs are written for the show, the lyrics are obviously designed to advance the plot. When a song is forced to fit on a story it wasn’t created for, it fits the show like a square peg in a round hole.

Will this show run long in Vegas? We saw it on a Friday night and the house was half-empty. The half that was there seemed more interested in their drinks than in the show. Perhaps this sort of tepid response was a part of co-producer Clear Channel’s decision to cancel the planned North American tour and Broadway opening. Dying in the desert seems appropriate for this show.

We Will Rock You is dark on Thursdays.