The Beatles LOVE

Cirque Du Soleil's nineteenth show opened in 2006. It is the fifth of their permanent productions in Las Vegas, Nevada (at the Mirage Hotel and Casino) and their first show to combine the Jukebox Musical genre with their "house style".

To say they started at the top in terms of the song catalog to tackle is quite the understatement. This show is a collaborative effort with Apple Corps Ltd, allowing not just the use of the songs of The Beatles in a show, but the original recordings of such as remixed by Sir George Martin and his son Giles.

The characters whose onstage escapades (including more dance than usual for Cirque) are set to this music are drawn from both the songs of the Beatles and the social, political, and cultural world and time the group emerged from; the Beatles themselves are not portrayed onstage but their presence is always there. The story travels from the rubble of World War II to the height of Beatlemania, from the initial backlash to their reinvention in the age of psychedelia. Metaphorically, the group's breakup is addressed, but so is the endurance of what they created together.

This show, as with most of Cirque's other Vegas productions, has not yet been filmed. There is a soundtrack album that contains the bulk of the 90-minute show's music, as well as a making-of documentary, All Together Now.

Feel free to compare and contrast this show with the film Across the Universe -- the 2008 Grammy Awards ceremony featured a crossover production number featuring cast members from both!


 * All There in the Manual: To cut through the layers and layers of symbolism in this show, the official website (specifically, the Director's Vision and Characters pages) and program are a huge help.
 * Circus of Fear: The initial backlash against the Beatles -- particularly the "bigger than Jesus" controversy in the U.S. -- is depicted as this, featuring the Creepy Circus Music that is "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"...which is pushed further into darkness when it segues into a combination of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and "Helter Skelter".
 * Costume Porn: 1960s pop art is brought to life and pushed even further into whimsy...
 * Crosscast Role: To give her a caricatured appearance, Her Majesty is played by a man.
 * The Eleven O'Clock Number: "Hey Jude".
 * The Everyman: The four "Nowhere Men" who are the central onstage characters.
 * Moral Guardians: Represented by Mr. Piggy (the only onstage speaking character), who looks down upon the Beatles and what they represent.
 * Mushroom Samba: "Strawberry Fields Forever" is presented as this. The specific substance served up to the Nowhere Men is tea, but the metaphor is quite intentionally transparent.
 * Numerological Motif: The number in question, of course, is four. The showroom layout is similar to a theater-in-the-round, but the stage has four sides and four ground-level entrance ramps for performers. Major and minor characters that come in groups of four include the Nowhere Men, Children of Liverpool, Nurses, blackbirds, astronauts, etc.
 * Retool: This show was a hit out of the gate, but there have been some tweaks made to it. A "Blackbird"-inspired comic skit in which Dr. Robert tries to get four blackbirds airborne again was widely panned, so (seemingly as soon as possible) it was dropped and replaced with a low-key transition using the actual song. A procession of characters across the stage was also added to the "Because" prologue.
 * Rule of Three (or Four): A white VW beetle shows up several times, and the last time it appears.
 * Scare Chord: The prologue ends with the closing chord of "A Day in the Life" played backwards, resulting in a buildup of noise that's punctuated with this -- specifically, the opening chord of "A Hard Day's Night".
 * The Sixties
 * Spiritual Successor: Cirque went on to tackle Elvis Presley's work in Viva Elvis (2010), and Michael Jackson's in two different shows, the first of which premiered in 2011.
 * Women In White
 * The Nurses, who (naturally) represent healing.
 * The female aerialists in "Something" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", accentuating their ethereal beauty.
 * The ballerina in "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is also beautiful, but the context of number (the dissolution of the band) gives the white a patina of lost innocence and longing.