Wednesday, November 14, 2007

BREAKING: Joey Arias To Leave Zumanity

The legendary drag performer Joey Arias, who has starred as the emcee of the Cirque du Soleil production of "Zumanity" at New York-New York, is departing the show at the end of the year, if a suitably off-beat YouTube appearance is any indication. Arias is probably the only name star of any sort in any Cirque du Soleil production anywhere, so this is a significant development.

It's hard to make out what he's saying, but here's a transcript provided to me by the YouTube video's poster, who is Joey's personal masseur:

"Oh, I'm standing here thinking about my last here days in Las Vegas, I've been waiting for this dream to come true, time is clicking. I'll be leaving here soon. I know I am the Creature, the seed of this show. Oh yes, the show of life. People will always wonder, where is she? She will be wrapped in your arms. Oh, yes, your arms, Yes. Jared, even though the potato chips and the dip didn't go well, I think our love surpasses that on this moon, this martian landscape. Yes! Ill be leaving. If you want to see me before you've got a short time. I'll be leaving you now, leaving, come......come!"




The masseur in the comments section clarifies for us that Joey is gone after New Year's Eve.

The surprise to me is, frankly, that Arias stayed as long as he did. He's a New York legend and Andy Warhol pal with a brilliant and saucy spontaneous wit who was unable in "Zumanity" to show off the fullest extent of his talent because he had to follow a script that wasn't really all that funny. Here's hoping maybe he'll do some local cabaret performances before he vacates Sin City!

The amusing thing about Joey is that he's been in the show for 4.5 years and I believe he still lives in the hotel that Cirque puts up all their talent in for their first month or so in town.

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