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Criss Angel Believe

Published Thursday 11 June 2009 at 13:45 by Alistair Smith

Cirque du Soleil’s latest mega-budget offering marks a departure for the company. The troupe’s acrobats, dancers and technical wizardry play second fiddle, if you like, to the main event - US TV magician Criss Angel’s debut Las Vegas show.

Believe is, in effect, a brave attempt to meld a big-name magic act with the spectacular productions for which Cirque du Soleil has become famous. If it ultimately fails, it is not through want of trying or creative endeavour, but rather because of what slowly reveals itself as a fundamental flaw in this concept.

The evening starts off pretty traditionally. Angel engages in some audience banter, asks a member of the public to think of a word and then produces a piece of paper from a locked box upon which said word is inscribed. His next trick, though, ends in an impressively gory fashion when the magician is electrocuted.

From here on, we are transported to a world inside Criss Angel’s head. A world that is seemingly almost entirely populated by rabbits. Indeed, the magician’s supposed psyche appears to lie somewhere between Watership Down and Mad Max - all leather and bunny ears.

The show then follows a narrative thread of sorts, which sees Angel torn between two women rabbits. It’s all very odd, but visually an utter treat. Tricks are interwoven with the story, the highlight being a wonderful number in which he produces scores of doves from his sleeves.

Unfortunately, there is an insurmountable problem.

Shorn of the traditional framing of set-up and reveal, the tricks are reduced to feeling more like stage effects than illusion. Without the necessary rigmarole of lulling the audience into a suspension of disbelief - eg audience involvement or patter explaining why such a feat is impossible - the impact of all the magic is terminally diminished.

Believe is a fascinating and stylish experiment, but one that probably won’t be repeated. As a magic show, it doesn’t stand up to the best Vegas has to offer, and as a Cirque du Soleil production, there are also more spectacular options.

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