Fantasy at The Luxor, Las Vegas

Jan 31st, 2008 0 Comment

Fantasy
The Luxor, Las Vegas


TICKETHOLDERS

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Fantasy at the Luxor’s Atrium Theatre is the Vegas Strip’s classiest topless extravaganza, far more than just firmly resculptured breasts popped out of splendidly sequined bikini tops. Truly the main wonder of Fantasy, from my unique perspective, is not the size of accoutrements featured along this line of beautiful nubile chorines, even though the perfect sets of the show’s most advertised attraction are nothing to be sneezed at—unless, of course, you’re into that sort of thing.

To me the line of admittedly fine looking chests are overshadowed by the long-legged gypsies’ collective precision interpretations of the knockout choreography provided by Eddie Garcia and his longtime partner, J-Lo ex Cris Judd—but then again I do admit I subscribe to Playboy to read the articles. Fantasy clearly focuses on stellar dancing ability, although my heterosexual cousin Gregg from Rockford, Illinois, who attended the show with me, might offer some debate about that. I told Gregg’s wary wife Lynn that if Fantasy offended her, she and I could catch Chippendale’s at the Rio or Thunder Down Under at Excalibur the next night—instead, we all checked out Zumanity and everyone was happy.

Granted, there is one young lady in Fantasy with truly enormous endowments, but if she’s there to appease the good ol’ boys from back home at the speedway in attendance, she holds her own—no pun intended—as a dancer as well, although her chest does offer a rather distracting counterbalance to the movements of the rest of her body. The gifted and gorgeous Jennifer Ross, who out of her clothes looks like a fugitive from Zena: Warrior Princess, is the unacknowledged star of the revue and the dynamic Stephanie Jordan steals the show belting out song after song. Personally, I could do without the mood-breaking antics of comic-impressionist Sean Cooper, seemingly only added to provide time for the girls to change costumes and wipe off the unattractive glow of perspiration, but I’ll have to admit the guy’s purdy funny, especially complete with voodoo sorceress hair and his Schwarzenegger calf muscles in a dead-on impersonation of Tina Turner.

The history of Fantasy explains everything: When MGM/Mirage bought the Luxor in a multibillion-dollar deal in 2006, the corporation asked that the Egyptian-themed hotel’s topless revue Midnight Fantasy be revamped and youth-ified to attract Vegas’ new less walker-and-oxygen-tank-wheeling audience. Garcia, Judd and producer Anita Mann were brought in to create something different than what was offered in their own celebrated Crazy Horse Paris (the former Le Femme) at MGM Grand, not wanting to compete with themselves as they upsized corporately. If Crazy Horse is touted as the Art of the Nude, Fantasy could be referred to as the Art of Dancing Performed in the Nude, since it first and foremost features spectacular hoofers—no, now, I said hoofers—seemingly chosen more for talent than cup size. 

Fantasy plays indefinitely at the Luxor Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, 3900 Las Vegas Blvd. South. Tickets may be reserved at 800.557.7428 or 702.262.4400. For more information, visit www.fantasyluxor.com


TRAVIS MICHAEL HOLDER teaches acting and theatre/film history at the New York Film Academy’s west coast campus at Universal Studios. He has been writing about LA theatre since 1987, including 12 years for BackStage, a 23-year tenure as Theatre Editor for Entertainment Today, and currently for ArtsInLA.com. As an actor, he received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Best Actor Award as Kenneth Halliwell in the west coast premiere of Nasty Little Secrets at Theatre/Theater and he has also been honored with a Drama-Logue Award as Lennie in Of Mice and Men at the Egyptian Arena, four Maddy Awards, a ReviewPlays.com Award, both NAACP and GLAAD Award nominations, and six acting nominations from LA Weekly. Regionally, he won the Inland Theatre League Award as Ken Talley in Fifth of July; three awards for his direction and performance as Dr. Dysart in Equus; was up for Washington, DC’s Helen Hayes honors as Oscar Wilde in the world premiere of Oscar & Speranza; toured as Amos “Mr. Cellophane” Hart in Chicago; and he has traveled three times to New Orleans for the annual Tennessee Williams Literary Festival, opening the fest in 2003 as Williams himself in Lament for the Moths and since returning to appear in An Ode to Tennessee and opposite Karen Kondazian as A Witch and a Bitch. Never one to suffer from typecasting, Travis’ most recent LA performance, as Rodney in The Katrina Comedy Fest, netted the cast a Best Ensemble Sage Award from ArtsInLA. He has also been seen as Wynchell in the world premiere of Moby Pomerance’s The Good Book of Pedantry and Wonder and Frank in Charles Mee’s Summertime at The Boston Court Performing Arts Center, Giuseppe “The Florist” Givola in Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui for Classical Theatre Lab, Ftatateeta in Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra at the Lillian, Cheswick in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at the Rubicon in Ventura, Pete Dye in the world premiere of Stranger at the Bootleg (LA Weekly Award nomination), Shelly Levene in Glengarry Glen Ross at the Egyptian Arena, the Witch of Capri in Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore at the Fountain, and Dr. Van Helsing in The House of Besarab at the Hollywood American Legion Theatre. As a writer, he has also been a frequent contributor to several national magazines and five of his plays have been produced in LA. His first, Surprise Surprise, for which he wrote the screenplay with director Jerry Turner, became a feature film with Travis playing opposite John Brotherton, Luke Eberl, Deborah Shelton and Mary Jo Catlett. His first novel, Waiting for Walk, was completed in 2005, put in a desk drawer, and the ever-slothful, ever-deluded, ever-entitled Travis can’t figure out why no one has magically found it yet and published the goddam thing. www.travismichaelholder.com

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