"Triumph, It Runs On Steam" is the full name of the new show at the Hilton. It got off to a very rocky start last week as many shows were canceled for undisclosed reasons. They have been working on this show for quite a while. It plays in the main showroom at the Hilton.
Triumph, is billed as some kind of alluring, mystical, sensual, experience taking you on a journey through time, space, blah, blah, blah. In reality, it is a big box magic show, with a lot of stage set, and some unique dance numbers.
The stage is set up in some kind of Victorian/Industrial age design when steam was king, although it's not terribly different than the set of Cats. The basic outfits of the company were a cross between those times and the British grunge/punk era. The music was canned and it would have been nice if it were live. It was a pretty good original music score.
The show starts a little lame with the company walking down aisles looking at people and taking an empty seat. Then a barker comes out and preaches about the time travel and gets those people fired up in attempt to fire up the audience. This drags out a little too long and then the company storms the stage and does a few dance numbers. The last number of that set ends with the opening of a box that reveals the two magicians. After that, it's back and forth with dance numbers and magic.
The magic was not bad. I've seen a lot of magic in this town. For big box magic, it was a little above average. The magicians are Larry Fischer and Rafael Palacios. One guy has long flowing blonde hair, and the other is well built aging Mexican looking guy. They don't talk but they seem to make a pretty good team and fit the magician profile well. They do a few hokey things like the orb and hankie, and the box that squeezes a girl into a little box. And Rafael flies around on the cloth ropes a little. Their best magic is when the raise a cloth up and drop it to find another person there.
The dance numbers are interesting and unique. The choreography is top notch and the dancers are good. The costumes start Victorian and digress back in time and less and less garments. There are about 4 female dancers and about 10 male dancers. They keep it all family friendly, but sometimes push it to the edge. Sometimes you think that you're watching a Broadway play and other times you're watching acrobatic dancing.
If there was some sort of storyline about good vs evil, or Nikola Tesla, or a battle of humankind, I missed it. OTOH, it was very obvious that this has the elements for a top notch show. The people that put this show together have strong credentials and have put a lot of work into making things work right. For an original production, everything they do, they do pretty well. It is unique and flows well, and the combination of magic with that style of dancing has never been done before.
I was sitting in the front row and I thought that they went a little bit overboard with the "steam" which was the typical stage smoke. On stage you can see two huge CO2 tanks for the fog machines. The steam may have been perfect for those further back in the seating. And since the actors go into the audience several times, the front rows aren't always the best. I think they went overboard on the presentation of the unbalance of male and female dancers also. It's not so much of a gay thing as a stage unbalance issue, although it "seemed" very gay friendly.
Tickets are available on all the locals freebie sites, and discounted at the discount outlets for tourists.
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