Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
end of his hour-long set, you'll feel like you just left the most delightful of
cocktail parties (as Anderson often engages the audience in a friendly, non-threat-
ening way).
If you've ever seen
Carrot Top
555
(at Luxor;
%
800/557
-
7428 or 702/262
-
4400; www.carrottop.com;
$
50; Wed-Fri and Sun-Mon 8pm, Sat 7pm and 9pm)
on
Letterman or Leno, you know what he's all about: hilarious props, inventions
really, that he pulls out of four large trunks in the course of the show. There are
toilet seat cover plates for bulimics, face-covering pacifiers for “very ugly babies,”
a “Dick Cheney shotgun” (with a boomerang curve), and literally a hundred other
amusing sight gags. But the biggest visual surprise of all may well be Carrot Top
himself, who's bulked up to Schwarzenegger proportions and uses his new pecs as
part of the act.
The newest Strip comic,
Vinnie Favorito
5
(at O'Shea's Casino;
%
703/733
-
3333; www.vinniefavorito.com;
$
46 at box office,
$
24 with a twofer; Tues-Sat
7:30 and 9:30pm, Sun 8:30pm)
is
best known as a “celebrity roaster.”
You may have caught his act on
Comedy Central turning the
screws on such luminaries as Larry
King, Tom Arnold, and Jerry
Springer. He does the same routine
here, with the audience substitut-
ing for the celebs, and Favorito
impressively riffing about the lives
of a dozen audience members after
just a few sentences of conversation
with them. Some of the humor
relies on cultural stereotyping, but
as he plays up his own “goombah”
persona, it's rarely offensive and usually quite funny. For a show this cheap—there
are always twofers being handed out outside—it's one heck of a good time.
THE TOP DISAPPOINTMENTS
There are, of course, some disappointments among the headliners.
Céline Dion—
A New Day
(in Caesars Palace;
%
877/4-CELINE or 702/474
-
4000; www.celinedion/
anewday;
$
79-
$
204; Wed-Sun 8:30pm)
is a particularly sore one, as it's one of the
most expensive tickets in town, and the reason for that expense—an over-the-top
production with the world's largest high format LED screen in the back and a 48-
person cast—is also what's wrong with the show. Created by former Cirque du
Soleil director Franco Dragone, the 22-song concert is marred by a mishmash of
overwrought imagery—40 shirtless men in a heap here, a flying piano there, mas-
sive projections of Times Square or menacing storm clouds—that add up to noth-
ing and draw the audiences' focus away from the usually forceful Dion. At times,
the show feels a bit like an expensive “Where's Waldo” game, as you desperately
try to spot Dion among the crowds of hurtling dancers. Die-hard fans may still
enjoy the show—the performance I most recently attended felt like a revival meet-
ing, with audience members shouting their “I love yous” every time there was a
lull—but I found it a numbing pageant with little heart.
“
For the grand debut of Monte
Carlo as a resort in 1879 the archi-
tect Charles Garnier designed an
opera house for the Place du Casino;
and Sarah Bernhardt read a symbolic
poem. For the debut of Las Vegas as
a resort in 1946 Bugsy Siegel hired
Abbot and Costello, and there, in a
way, you have it all.
”
—Tom Wolfe
