On Monday afternoon, I visited David Saxe at a rehearsal for his new show “Spoofical The Musical” for a column I was writing for sister publication Las Vegas Weekly, which is posted and published today.
The first thing the Las Vegas native and founder of David Saxe Productions said to me when I walked into V Theater at Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood was, “Have you seen the other one yet?”
Not yet.
The “other one” Saxe referred to is “Twisted Vegas” at Westgate Las Vegas, which joins “Spoofical” as the rare production that parodies Las Vegas’ more famous shows and performers.
It’s easy to understand Saxe’s curiosity.
Las Vegas hasn’t been effectively satirized in a proper stage show in a long spell. The last fully realized production that took on the city’s entertainment culture was “Forbidden Vegas,” a snappy satire show at Westin Casuarina that ran from 2004-2005. The show was an offshoot of “Forbidden Broadway” in New York and performed to great hilarity in a refitted Westin banquet room.
Since then, it’s been quiet on the Las Vegas parody front until this month. Why now? Coincidence, mostly. Aside from the subject of the comedy and their starting dates (Monday for “Spoofical” and Tuesday for “Twisted Vegas,” each at 7 p.m.) these shows have little in common.
“Twisted Vegas” is family fun. “Spoofical” is “Family Guy.”
“Twisted Vegas” is headed up by French comic and MC Alex Goude, an affable and fast-witted gentleman who once aspired to be a magician and whose first Las Vegas entertainment experience was the Siegfried & Roy show at the Mirage. Goude is billed as France’s incarnation of Neil Patrick Harris, who has spent extensive time working all facets of live theater at Theatrouille Comedia Theater in Paris. Goude has starred on French TV, theater and film and says, “I have done many many shows in France, and every one of them has been successful.”
He’s not bragging. The guy knows how to entertain, having hosted “France’s Got Talent” and spent the last three years scouring Las Vegas in preparation of the spoof show he’s about to host.
“We wanted to do something that others are not doing, and we think there is a need for family shows in Las Vegas,” he says. “We have nothing that is really family friendly, where you can bring kids and have them not get bored or offended after 10 minutes.”
The show’s boast that it is fine “for ages 5 to 99” reads like the claim on a box of Animal Crackers. But the show does have some bite. During today’s formal arrival of the show’s cast at the Westgate entrance, we observed a little person Elvis character (Dimos, a veteran Las Vegas performer), a transvestite Celine Dion impressionist (Costic is the artist, who can portray a number of characters) and a pair of remote-controlled planes that circle the International Theater with the Grand Canyon as a backdrop.
David Saxe, producer of V - The Ultimate Variety Show and Vegas! The Show.
A total of 25 acts are summoned in 75 minutes. The show’s co-writer and co-director (with Goude) is a Las Vegas expert on and off the stage: Michael Goudeau, whose durability — 15,000 live shows in Las Vegas as a juggler and comic — alone merits attention. Goudeau has written for Penn & Teller’s TV specials and was the guest act in Lance Burton’s stage show for nearly 20 years. Goudeau appears in his clown role in the production, creating a kind of “Goude & Goudeau” comedy team.
If “Twisted Vegas” is beguiling, “Spoofical” is just brutal. That’s how that show feels even in rehearsals, and by Saxe’s description. We have the Poop Man Group instead of Blue Man Group, for instance. The Poop Men are all slathered in brown paint, and instead of eating Twinkies, they gobble up turds.
“Spoofical” is a musical satire (another distinction from “Twisted Vegas,” which is not), with lyrics written primarily by Saxe. The dance numbers, especially the segment to “Downtown” and a sendup of the Jabbawockeez, are laden with adult maneuvers and named for fetish sex acts. Britney Spears and J.Lo are represented as a puppet and giant derriere, respectively. Elvis and Michael Jackson arrive from coffins. Larry King, Betty White and Carol Channing are the subjects of the musical number “Not Dead Yet,” which, as the producer himself says, “Forces me to check the obituaries in the paper every day.”
The cast of “Crazy Girls” is shown wearing straitjackets and foaming at their mouths (crazy, get it?). What didn’t make the cut? A scene that skewered Siegfried & Roy, where Siegfried became frustrated that Roy could no longer perform magic because of his physical limitations. Again, brutal, and Saxe wisely steered clear of that representation — only to develop a Siegfried & LeRoy bit that replaces Roy with a black sidekick and “is pretty racist.”
OK. Thanks for the warning. It’s yet another Seth MacFarlane-inspired moment in a script brimming with such.
And the Criss Angel treatment, where the Luxor headliner is depicted as a familiar feminine product often used to describe generally offensive men, is as unsophisticated an act as you’ll see anywhere (read that description, with a photo of the costume, in the L.V. Weekly story).
That number alone is sure to spark debate about whether Saxe has gone too far, and even he wonders if he’s strayed from the bounds of good taste. This scene is where the small-town characteristics of Las Vegas are evident. Saxe and Angel have actually been friendly over the years. This is not a case of satirizing a person with whom Saxe has zero personal relationship.
“You know, he was here one night, watching ‘Zombie Burlesque,’ and I was sitting next to him. Tiny Bubbles (the oversized burlesque nun character in the show performed ably by Steve Daly) started tweeting that Angel was in the audience and saying some nasty things about him. He turns to me and says, ‘Really? I’m sitting here as a guest, and your employees are tweeting this crap about me?’ I went backstage and put a stop to it.”
And went back to work on the costume, one presumes.
“We’re just going for laughs, in the most outrageous way,” Saxe says. “No one is spared.” He’s yet to target the show that is his greatest motivation for this form of adult humor, Spiegelworld’s “Absinthe,” or one of his own productions.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Saxe says of attacking either production company.
But unlike “Twisted Vegas” with its agreeable ebullience, “Spoofical” asks the question: Is unfair also unfunny? Saxe is convinced that the laughs merit the meanness, and his show is left for the public to judge. That is why they sell tickets.
Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.
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