A Star is Born meets Vegas

Louis and Keely Live at the Sahara. The Geffen Playhouse. 6/25/2009.

Everyone in the world may already know this, since it's seriously late in the show's run, but Louis and Keely Live at the Sahara is a wildly entertaining, incredibly performed romp through Vegas in the '50s and '60s and I absolutely loved it. It's a sweet little cabaret show about the intertwined career and romance shared by bandleader Louis Prima and singer Keely Smith. The complexities of a real life romance and marriage are shoved into the plot of A Star is Born, but like the songs onstage, old familiar standards get a new life through truly inspired performances.

Jake Broder as Louis Prima and Vanessa Claire Smith as Keely Smith are also listed as co-creators and their unique talents and personalities absolutely bring the show to life. Broder as Prima sings and swings and sweats through an hour and 40 minutes onstage without respite. His performance emphasizes Prima's hard-working manic energy and dedication his performance and his audience. The real delight of the show is Smith's Keely; she brings a charm and delight that brightens the stage and defines the show. She plays Keely with a combination of naivety and brashness that make her a fascinating character. The performances in this show define the piece and make it unmissable.

Other delights of the show include Frank Sinatra (played by Nick Cagle) as the villian, who apparently wasn't in the original production at Sacred Fools and Brian Wallis and Michael Lanahan who I've seen often enough recently in Magnum Opus and Serial Killers at Sacred Fools that they feel like old friends. This is another show where I should have brought a musicologist to talk to me about the music, but it seemed like a lot of fun to me.

In terms of gender, I like that Keely was a strong character, but I think that the show put too much emphasis on Prima discovering, teaching and "creating" Smith. It was a bit too much a show about Prima and his art and ego when Smith should have been the star. That was in its way appropriate to the ideas of the show and the spirit of '50s Vegas, but still not something that I like. It's also not how Keely herself tells the story, at least according to the 2000 interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air. I also think that setting the beginning and end of the show with Prima's death dragged down an otherwise buoyant show and made the beginning a bit rough; this was, first and foremost a love story and idea of looking back on a life didn't add much for me. But despite a few intellectual quibbles, this is a truly fabulous, perfectly entertaining show and I highly recommend it to anyone; my parents loved it!

This show is excellent, and totally worth seeing. They just extended the run until August 2, so get your tickets now!