09-11-2004 – SF Chronicle – A theater show in Vegas

Queen’s latest throne: a theater show in Vegas
Queen was the supreme ’70s glam rock art band. The kings of the bombastic fantastic, they made music infused with all sorts of classical cultural references, from Beethoven to British music hall. Fronted by Freddie Mercury, a dark Adonis in tight pants with a voice that would short out an iPod, Queen was a fertile hit-making machine from the mid-’70s — when it spawned its smash hit, “Bohemian Rhapsody” — until 1991, when Mercury died from AIDS, the rock world’s first major AIDS casualty.

The hallmark of Queen’s music was its theatricality. Those songs begged to be on more than a concert stage. But it took years to come up with a concept that was infused with the spirit of Mercury and Queen yet wasn’t simply a rehashed biography. “We Will Rock You,” which opened Wednesday night at Paris Las Vegas, is the result. Written by Ben Elton, noted in Britain as a novelist, stand-up comedian, sitcom writer, actor (briefly as Verges in Kenneth Branaugh’s 1993 version of “Much Ado About Nothing”) and director, “We Will Rock You” is the slight and screwy pile of bones upon which the music of Queen is draped.

The plot is anorexic: The music, as Don McLean once said, has already “died.” Earth has become Planet Mall, controlled by an uber-corporation called Global Soft that is run by the Killer Queen. Live music has been replaced by computer-activated software. But somewhere out there, a group of rebels called the Bohemians is looking for its savior, a dreamer who will find their particular grail, the legendary “ax” — an electric guitar — that will revive their rock ‘n’ roll heritage.

Against a backdrop of “Matrix”-like computer projections and up-lighting, and pyrotechnics when called for (as Elton jokes, “Queen always knew their pyro”), the show really isn’t anything more than Arthurian legend meets “Metropolis” “Matrix.”

But who cares? The audience loves the show. Twirling and waving their GloStix, given to everyone entering the theater (a natural choice since flicking a Bic in Las Vegas is probably welcome only in casinos while lighting up), the audience falls into the choreographed interactivity of the show. The lyrics of the 25 featured Queen songs, however, are so dense that there is very little of the sing-along that ABBA fans find in “Mamma Mia.” Except, naturally, “We Are the Champions” and “We Will Rock You,” which have the audience on its feet.

Since the show opened in London in May 2003, more than 2 million people have been to see it at the Dominion Theater.

“And only 12 people didn’t like it,” says Elton, a shortish, studious- looking gray-hair in owlish glasses with gymnastic intellect.

“The London critics,” he adds with a grimace.

But popular entertainments seem to survive critical pans. Case in point: “Mamma Mia,” probably the progenitor of what has become a new category of theatrical entertainment, the “catalog musical.” The formula: Take the entire canon of a popular band, like ABBA, like Queen, stitch together a plot and string the music on it. It’s the music that people want to hear, but in a setting quite different from a bar with a beer-basted band playing third-rate covers.

“We Will Rock You” is now a worldwide phenomenon with shows running in Australia, London, Spain and now Vegas; one opens in Moscow on Oct. 17, another in Germany in December and, in 2005, companies are planned for South Africa, Japan, Italy and a Canadian tour. It is a money machine. Houses have been packed. Crowds are so enthusiastic, they’re on their feet for most of the last 15 minutes (much like “Mamma Mia’s” concert encore) for a full performance of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which Queen’s guitarist Brian May will tell you topped the charts both in 1975 and 1992 (when it was rereleased at Mercury’s death to raise money for AIDS charities).

“BoRap,” as the band calls it, is a nearly six-minute single filled with non sequitur references to Galileo, Figaro and Scaramouche. “Is this the real world?/ Is this a fantasy?” the song asks. (Well, it was real enough to be voted Britain’s favorite single in 2002, beating John Lennon’s “Imagine.”) It is the core of “We Will Rock You,” the “ancient text,” as it were, according to Elton, the key to the retrieval of the rock ‘n’ roll spirit in the age of corporate blandness. But for some inexplicable reason, the song, referred to countless times within the confines of the script, is performed only as an encore. Thank goodness the young cast’s voices are up to it.

Both Scaramouche and Galileo have been double cast. Tony Vincent, the requisite rock-skinny ebony-haired waif, was up to the task opening night; his alternate, Jason Wooten, got an opportunity to show off his Queen chops at the after-party, performing onstage with Queen’s Roger Taylor and May, Toto guitarist Steve Lukather, speed metal specialist Steve Vai and bassist Glenn Hughes, who was briefly in both Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.

As Galileo’s “chick” Scaramouche, there are more steel-throated rock naifs: Aspen Miller, who appeared at the premiere, and Kacie Sheik, who also performed. All are young (Sheik is 23) veterans of Broadway and stock.

The question came up in one disastrous British review: Would Mercury have loved this show? The cheeky verdict: A resounding “no!”

May begs to disagree.

“Freddie is in this. The show is infused with his spirit. He would have loved it.” “We Will Rock You” performances are at 9 p.m. Monday; 7 and 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday; 9 p.m. Friday; 5 and 9 p.m. Sunday (no shows on Thursdays); at Paris Las Vegas. Tickets are $80.50-$113.50 (including tax and handling) and are available at Paris Las Vegas Box Office or by calling (702) 946-4567 or (877) 762-57469.