Theater Review – “Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity” in Las Vegas, 8-4-2006 performance

Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity
at the New York New York hotel in Las Vegas
reviewed 8-4-2006 performance

Overall Quality 4.0 / 5.0
Gay Content 2.0 / 5.0
Gay Positivity 3.5 / 5.0

My dad calls this show “topless raunch meets Cirque du Soleil.” The word “raunch” doesn’t feel quite right. This is a Cirque du Soleil performance, so everything is highly stylized and metaphorical. And yet, some of the costumes even had fake pubic hair, so it’s not exactly haute couture. Say rather “salty” or “burlesque,” and I’ll agree.

“Zumanity” displayed lots of beautiful bodies in a variety of choreographed scenes, but it also incorporated different kinds of physiques. A couple of players were large women, for example, and the cast also included the most muscular little person I’ve ever seen. The show was not so much erotic as titillating, including such fare as a fishbowl swim-dance routine with two topless Asian women and a mid-air gymnastics routine posing as bondage play. A relatively small cast and theater gave the show a more intimate feeling as well.

My favorite part of the performance involved a sequence of scenes that provided a wonderful metaphor for male sexuality. First the male performers play-act an audience for a strip show with a dominatrix brandishing a whip. Other female strippers then come out and offer the men lap dances. They maneuver the men into a common area and then disappear. A cage descends from the ceiling and traps the men (what a great metaphor)!

The men then become aggressive, sublimating their sexual energy. Two of the men begin a choreographed gymnastic routine-cum-fight. And yet, they intersperse the fight with brief intimate gestures, before resuming the assault. The fight ends with a full on kiss between the two men. How interesting that the show chose to portray male-on-male sexuality through aggression rather than affection.

Admittedly, much of the erotic content of the show as a whole seemed divorced from love, affection, and intimacy. Were the producers highlighting the frequent homoeroticism present in male aggression? Or did they feel homo-affection would alienate the primarily straight audience? When the two men kissed, the audience audibly gasped.

At the end of the show, the same two men also engaged in simulated and clothed but surprisingly graphic gay sex. The emcee (a drag queen who strongly hints at her own gayness) highlights the act and makes a joke: “They may not repopulate, but they sure can decorate.”

I consider the gay content to be vaguely disingenuous, but I give the show’s producers kudos for incorporating it to the extent they did. And I love a show that can make me think. Add in the delightful comedy which begins pre-show and continues throughout, and we have a winner.