“Lean forward,” says my wife.
“What?”
The music is very loud, not conducive to conversation.
“Lean towards me,” she says on the edge of urgency.
I lean forward, expecting her to say something personal that she doesn’t want to shout. When she says nothing, I ask, “Did you want to say something?”
“No. just sit forward. I’ll tell you when you can sit back. That dude is behind you in his jockstrap and if you lean back an inch, his bare butt is going to hit you in the head.”
“Oh …” I leaned forward a few more inches. “Tell me when it’s safe to sit back again.”
“Not yet,” she says. “I’ll tell you.”
At the time she’d asked me to lean forward, I was in the process of writing notes on the show. When I review shows, I take notes on a notepad. I write in the dark, without looking at the page, then later I read my scribbles to refresh my memory of the important things I noted. My notes as I sat there leaning forward say:
help
some dude’s butt
too close to my head!
So, guys, I’ll say right off, if you go to this show, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
This is another show meant for women only and the audience is almost all female. The theater seats about 350 (top of head estimate) and I saw only two other men in the crowd. I went with my wife to get the female perspective.
The night I went to review the show may have been a bad night. At the entry doors to the theater, attendees were being asked to sign a waiver, as the show was being filmed for a documentary, and the film producers were requesting permission to film the audience members. I didn’t think much of it at the time, though I was hoping that the camera and sound crews wouldn’t interfere too much in the performance from the audience perspective. As it turned out, the film crew was hardly noticeable.
The problem, however, was that much of the show consists of the male dancers bringing female audience members onto the stage for silly skits. For example, one routine is a “game show” where three women compete for a prize. The women have to act out “naughty” fantasies with the MC.
But none of the contestants came off like real women from the audience. I think they were shills, acting out scripted performances for the film. The whole show seemed to lack spontaneity and enthusiasm.
A second problem was the sound system, and specifically with the MC’s microphone. It was often hard to understand what he was saying. Also, the MC sings on a few of the numbers, and whoever was doing the sound mixing was constantly drowning out his voice with the music. This was about the worst sound system I’ve ever heard in a Vegas production show. It occurs to me that this also may have been due to the filming. Perhaps they were using a different mic that was being mixed for the film but less-than-ideally for the stage show. He tried a sing-along on “Sweet Home Alabama.” I couldn’t figure out why it was included in the show.
About halfway through the production, my wife asked me if I’d mind if she left. Her words at the time were: “This is awful. I can’t sit through it.”
The dancers were good dancers, hunky dudes with pecs. They do a lot of ripping off of their t-shirts and throwing them into the audience.
As a guy in that crowd, I was a bit uncomfortable. For women who like looking at hunky men, it may be fine, though my wife just thought it was a bad show. There’s quite a bit of full nudity in the show, though the dancers are always careful to hold their hands or some prop in front of their dicks when they turn around to face the audience. No full frontal shots.
The theater is comfortable. All seating is in padded chairs at small tables for four. In keeping with the show’s theme, even the cocktail server was a muscle-bound dude. A margarita was $14.
In some way, I feel I should go see this show again on a night when nobody’s filming. Maybe it’s a better show on normal nights. Then I remember sitting there hunched forward to avoid getting assed in the head, and I think there’s no way I will ever go back to that show.
On the other hand, if the opportunity to be assed appeals to you, this is a show where guys in jockstraps run up and down the aisles looking for someone to hump. The female audience as a whole was very responsive. They applauded, they laughed, they screamed. They were there to have a good time and they had it. They were the best part of the show. I felt like an intruder in their world.
