This Week's LVW Col: The Headliner That Got Away

Here's this week's Las Vegas Weekly installment. Enjoy.

The Headliner That Got Away
Former Zumanity star Joey Arias should've been Cirque's first marquee star

By STEVE FRIESS

I am one of just 70 people packed into an air-conditioning-less basement at an “experimental” theater in SoHo watching a gargantuan, nearly naked gender-bender stomping through a miniature set of New York City, à la Godzilla. At one point, much to the crowd’s uproarious pleasure, this monster taking Manhattan actually bites into and swallows the top of a skyscraper, the ultimate in chewing the scenery.

It is merely one outrageously campy, brilliant scene in a show that theatrically announces Andy Warhol pal Joey Arias’ triumphant return to his New York universe after five years as the hostess-with-the-moistest in Cirque du Soleil’s risqué revue Zumanity. In Arias With a Twist, the Greenwich Village legend is dropped back to Earth after being abducted for years by space aliens who, we may infer, are meant to allegorically represent the Cirque folks and Las Vegas itself.

In the show, which cost Arias and co-producer/puppeteering maestro Basil Twist about $100,000 to stage, Arias gets to do all the things onstage he really couldn’t do in the tightly scripted Cirque production still playing at New York-New York. He is at turns ridiculous, as when the aliens pleasurably probe him or when massive phalluses flail on gigantic puppets, and sincere, as when he puts his respected smoky voice to work on “All By Myself” and “You’ve Changed.” The result is a sold-out eight-month run that ended on New Year’s Eve as well as the glowing embrace of New York Times critic Ben Brantley, who opened his June review thusly: “Eat your heart out, Madonna.”

“Can you imagine this show in Vegas?” Arias cackles later over dinner at a nearby haunt, even as it’s clear he can.

And, in fact, so can I. In fact, the very reason I decided I needed to see Arias’ off-the-wall production while I was in New York last month was to confirm something I believed from the first time I learned of Arias back in 2003: Cirque missed an amazing chance when it had him in its clutches.

Joey Arias, not Criss Angel, should have been Cirque du Soleil’s first marquee headline performer.

Read the rest HERE

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.