by Robert Darmody

Created on: June 22, 2009

Entertainment can be neither measured nor qualified by those who offer the performance. The audience is the exclusive authority in evaluating the quality and character of entertainment rendered by what is billed as a 'show.'

Let's take a close look at audiences. Geography looms large as a factor in determining the sophistication and expectations of an audience. The show tradition in New York predates that of Las Vegas by decades. Entertainment expectations in a relatively sober audience in the 'Big Apple' are high by comparison to a slobbering crowd of dazed casino urchins from fly-over land who are easily impressed by pre-recorded, enhanced audio with bright flashing lights and lasers in a pulsing flutter that can create a cheap star image for anybody capable of bellowing into a microphone!

Puleeze! Don't insult New York City and Broadway with suggestions that there is anything in that dust pelted oasis remotely comparable to what is served up on 'The Great White Way' on the worst hangover depressed, day of any year!

Las Vegas used to put on shows with top flight entertainers who also appeared on Broadway. In those days it was 'World class!' That was when 'the company' ran the town, showing due deference to class in both entertainers and clientele. Now the corporate geniuses run Vegas and the whole game has changed; and I mean the WHOLE game.

'Make it cheap and charge a lot' ought to be the universal slogan of corporate America. Everything of genuine value that is touched by balance sheet worshippers becomes degraded. That includes entertainment. 'Go cheap' is the mantra of corporate America because it serves the holy of holies; the crusade to optimize dividends for investors via short sight and the complete absence of vision.

Broadway is and has always been about people's artistic aspirations and dreams. The bottom line is not of lesser importance. Profits are achieved from harvesting the product of mutual and merging causes. Capital tosses in with art to produce something beautifly human with dignity. Magic happens and the public responds by attending and celebrating art for entertainment sake. It is a noble and a vastly more talented display of dedication to excellence than giratin and lip-synching with dancing lasers, deafening orchestral imitations and washed -up 'has beens' looking for a gig.

The topic proposed here was intended seriously. What makes it into high comedy is that it is delusional.

Unless 'the company' returns to Vegas to assume control and breathe life into the degraded, empty hulk incapable of even a passable imitation of what once attracted World-class entertainers, comparisons with Broadway can only qualify as equally delusional.

Vegas? Fuhgetaboutit!

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