‘Zumanity’ tries new things to spice up its Vegas relationship — PHOTOS

Courtesy ("Zumanity")

Courtesy ("Zumanity")

Courtesy ("Zumanity")

Courtesy ("Zumanity")

Courtesy ("Zumanity")

“Zumanity” is the one Cirque du Soleil just never got quite right. It has seen a lot of tinkering over the years, but the biggest change came in 2011.

That’s when “Absinthe” opened at Caesars Palace.

Suddenly, the “adult Cirque” not only had competition in its odd market niche, but a rival which made it look easy to whip up a decadent cabaret show. “Absinthe” blended raunch comedy and acrobatics in a way Cirque had struggled for years to achieve.

Granted, the two shows are wildly different in tone. “Zumanity” still basks in Champagne class while “Absinthe” is Jager-shot crass. A sensual bubble bath versus a backseat quickie. But “Absinthe” was simply more fun. “Zumanity” still seemed self-consciously artsy and weird.

No wonder Cirque went back to the drawing board to spend the early part of this year on what it calls a “refresh” of the 12-year-old title at New York-New York.

The changes overseen by choreographer Yanis Marshall were locked in late last month. They are mostly subtle, not much altering the dreamy tone or the stand-out acts you remember: two women (Ulziibayar Chimed and Stefanie Laurino) in a bowl of water, little-person aerialist Alan Jones Silva or the airborne kinkiness of Jill Crook, given new currency by the “Fifty Shades” craze.

“Refresh” turns out to be a pretty good term. If you’ve only seen “Zumanity” once, you might not even realize anything is different — unless you really, really liked that bit with the gals trying to distract their dudes from the football game.

The changes work more to make the show seem less cluttered, a little funnier and more to the point. And if the point is to ogle beautiful people, we are sometimes invited to do it straight up, without always being sledgehammered by the message of accepting and celebrating sexuality in all forms. Show not tell.

One of the new bits is something you might even see in “Absinthe.” “Magnum” (Will Hulett) does the James Bond “Goldfinger” wetsuit-to-tux thing before the “under-the-cover” agent works his way down to a bedazzled codpiece.

And the bedroom antics finally have a bed, a prop that once might have been considered too prosaic and literal. Sure it might be something from “Fantasy” (or very much like something from “Le Reve”) to have a woman (Marina Tomanova) dreaming in a bed until her dream (Michael McNamara) swoops down and whisks her into the air.

But Cirque can do that stuff better than anyone, both the acrobatics and the poetic touch of pulling the sheet off the bed to make it part of the visual.

If some of the new material still stretches Cirque’s usual comfort zone — a new group dance scene with luminescent chairs right out of a Stanley Kubrick movie — then other moments are more squarely Cirque.

Dimitry Shine Bulkin is doing a balancing act on a pole, just in a red bikini. Mohawked aerialist Brandon Pereyda does his Cirque thing suspended from chains, but a singer and cellist come out to give him a soundtrack. Composer Simon Carpentier also revisited the music, which strangely enough, always had a hard time fitting into the “cabaret.” Now it’s a little sultrier, more New Orleans with its growling horns.

The producers were wise to leave well enough alone with host Eydie (Christopher Kenney, who sets the perfect cooing-camp tone), and the comic-relief couple, Shannan Calcutt and Nickey Dewhurst.

Eydie asks a couple of times whether she has any gays in the house. The show’s most infamous sequence drives home how long “Zumanity” has been on the Strip and how times change.

A homoerotic cage fight culminating in a kiss was pretty shocking in 2003, with a Republican president going to war in Iraq. The scene wasn’t well-loved and was changed: The kiss became a comic twist ending to two guys fighting over a girl.

Now in the year of legal gay marriage, the female corner of the triangle has disappeared, and the dudes are now in red pumps.

“Zumanity” may be responding to the frat house humor of “Absinthe,” but a gal’s gotta keep her dignity.

For more stories from Mike Weatherford visit bestoflasvegas.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com.