By Lawrence Bommer

CFP theater editor

A recent trip to Sin City (affectionately known as “Lost Wages, Nevada”) confirms a kind of perverse parallel between the casinos and the entertainment they offer. Both are based on elaborate illusions, a “now you see it, now you don’t” legerdemain that, more artifice than art, suggests smoke and mirrors and even hide and seek. After a week at the Mirage resort, you gradually see mirages everywhere. Not surprisingly, the theater scene lives on the same wizardry as the slot machines. Your money isn’t the only thing that’s a disappearing act. Spend a week here and everything except the heat seems a deliberate distraction.

But what gorgeous fantasies are spun behind the dancing waters and bubbling lights! No longer owned by headliners like Celine Dion, Siegfried and Roy (though you can still visit their cats, now in retirement) or Rat Pack wannabes, the Strip now belongs to Cirque du Soleil, with four expensive but unforgettable shows that push the limit of theatrical ingenuity. The Cirque spellbinders have even tailored their theaters to their technology. Each show amounts to 90 minutes of jaw-dropping amazement.

It all began with the Cirque’s first in-site marvel, the aquatic spectacle “O” at the Bellagio (famous for its nightly outdoor fountain show). Here an indoor ocean appears and disappears in an instant as the muscular acrobats adapt their style to a very malleable medium. Not a Cirque show but created by its former talent, “Le Reve” at Wynn Las Vegas also employs water to magical effect. The most elaborate water-based thrill show, Cirque’s “KÀ,” at the MGM Grand, features a 30-foot wall with vertical stage combat, as awesome a sight as can be dreamed and done.

More conventional and still running after a dozen years, Cirque’s “Zumanity” at New York New York is salacious stuff, a salute to Minsky’s burlesque with harness acts thrown in. But the most marvelous and least pretentious Cirque show is easily the Mirage’s “Seasons of Love,” a gorgeous salute to the Beatles that explores the imagery of their songs, familiar and less so, with stunning, state-of-the-art specificity. The theater, which used to house Siegfried and Roy’s menagerie, has been transformed into a kinetic playground that literally raises Lucy to the sky with diamonds.

Las Vegas also offers more traditional fare, including one-act versions of “Phantom” (at the gorgeous Venetian resort) and “Spamalot” at Wynn Hotel (its Camelot spoofery seemingly perfect for this larger-than-life oasis in the Mojave desert). You can even find vintage Las Vegas in such glorious extravaganzas as the long-running “Jubilee” revue at Ballys, where you can see the Titanic sink, splendidly, and Samson bring down the temple on the Philistines (not, happily, the audience). Finally, there’s the Riviera’s “La Cage,” which features celebrity impersonators who could probably work nowhere else.

The latter tacky travesties are my kind of Las Vegas show—unashamedly vulgar, unafraid to show off body parts, sassy and slightly stupid, with every sequin in your face and the chorus line kicking its way into your heart.