Cirque tribute show embraces Jackson’s oddity

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Not to put too fine a point on it, but Michael Jackson was weird.

This is hard to argue, whether you feel he was an eccentric, misunderstood genius, or if you thought he was genuinely disturbed and mentally ill (and there’s room to land somewhere in the middle).

But either way, it goes to follow that "The Immortal," Cirque du Soleil’s tribute to the king of pop, is one strange show as well. When you’re taking on Michael Jackson you go big or go home, and Cirque has never been a company to shy away from artistic eccentricity itself.

How strange is this thing?

The end of "Dancin’ Machine" leaves us looking at tap dancers, a mime (the central character, Salah Benlemqawanssa, who becomes gradually imbued with the moonwalking spirit of the Gloved One) and a guy suited up as Michael’s chimp, Bubbles.

Not weird enough? Immediately follow that with costumed elephants in the manner of Chinese parade dragons. They’re dancing to Jackson’s rat rhapsody, "Ben."

Keep going?

Out comes then a female rock chick in a halter and bare midriff to lay down a smokin’ cello solo. At least she is setting the scene for a ’30s gangster production number of "This Place Hotel" and "Smooth Criminal."

That one’s a straight-on, slam-bang adaptation of Jackson’s MTV glory years — with zoot-suited dancers doing a simultaneous, gravity-defying lean before welding sparks shoot out of their waistcoats — which you’d hoped "The Immortal" would have more of.

Instead, you get a lot of moments that surely come off smaller than intended for the arena spectacle, which parks at Mandalay Bay through Dec. 27.

You have to applaud the phantasmic costumes by Zaldy Goco and the bigness of the production design (even though a key prop of a "giving tree" from Neverland ranch disappeared in the two-month journey from the tour’s debut in Montreal), which puts as much of the action as possible on a round stage in the center of the arena.

But it’s still hard to work around the nearly impossible problem of doing a concert without a star. And while there are signature Cirque acrobatics, including an aerial adagio, they are a tough sell in an arena. As was evident on Cirque’s previous arena show "Delirium" (which wouldn’t have been a bad title for this one either), humans are only so tall and their feats are more impressive when you can see them sweat.

"The Immortal" can be divided roughly in half, reflecting the larger world’s split opinion on Michael Jackson.

Some of the two hours bring back fond memories of the Jackson everyone fell in love with: The boy prodigy who sang and danced his heart out with his older brothers, then grew up to set the ’80s on fire.

But somewhere after the "Bad" album, a lot of us decided to get off the choo choo train, checking out of Neverland either because of the child sexual abuse scandals or the music that became more naively precious and irrelevant (and there’s room to land somewhere in the middle).

And so "The Immortal" charts this path. If you love the music enough to buy a ticket, who won’t cheer the twin dancers erupting out of giant loafers for "Beat It"? Or the white-clad vampire bats and Baron Samedis doing the graveyard mash to "Thriller"?

But casual fans who somehow find themselves here may not regret cashing out at market’s peak when they see dancers hold up globes while Michael recites "Planet Earth." Or when the menacing robots of "They Don’t Care About Us" storm-troop in front of an equally ominous video montage. Police truncheons, armed missiles, the Klan: Bad. Mother Teresa, Ghandi, the guy facing down a tank in Tianamen Square: Good.

It’s probably for the best that Cirque chose director Jamie King and other friends of Jackson who would stay true to his vision, avoiding any temptation to give the music new context or merely appropriate it as a soundtrack for Cirque’s usual dreamworks.

There’s a faith and honesty here that reconfirms the pop icon for his true believers, while still giving the less devout (who, frankly, really shouldn’t be here) plenty of subtext to chew on as well.

King latches on to the 1995 song "Childhood" to set the show’s course: The boy who was denied a real childhood spent the rest of his life trying to recreate it. "People say I’m not O.K. ’cause I love such elementary things … It’s been my fate to compensate" (who knew he was so self-aware?), Jackson sings as an animatronic puppet of young Michael floats in a hot-air balloon.

Near the end comes a moment of genuine sadness; a video of Jackson twirling in messianic fervor, as we hear a voiceover of him reciting words to "Will You Be There": "In our darkest hour, in my deepest despair …"

Then it cuts to the boy we all loved singing "I’ll Be There," his extracted vocal accompanied live on piano by musical director Greg Phillinganes. How did it go so wrong for this boy of such gifts, to end up a victim of unbridled celebrity, devoid of any of life’s normal checks and balances? A faded star with a persecution complex, and demons so dark he thought he needed surgical anesthesia to go to sleep?

But trust the art, not the artist. As corny as it is to see acolytes holding up glowing valentine hearts in the audience, the gospel power of "Can You Feel It" reminds us there’s nothing wrong with childlike faith. Especially when it’s followed by dancers sparkling like a Lite-Brite game to "Billie Jean."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.