Show has little less Tape, lot more talk
SAM WILLS is adding a lot of talk to the tape. Wills portrays our favorite comic mime, Tape Face. He and his team continue to work effectively through COVID-19 restrictions at Harrah’s Showroom. The 50-capacity crowd is set distantly behind the 100 mannequins he has filling the Entertainment Moat in the section in front of the stage.
It’s an odd scene, keeping with the character’s slogan “stay weird,” and when Brad Garrett saw a photo of all those heads, he said, “It’s just the end of the friggin’ world.”
But you have to laugh at the masked figure wearing a Guns N’ Roses tour shirt; long, black wig and blue-paper face mask. Another figure looks like a veteran Vegas lounge performer who shall remain nameless.
The show opens with a lengthy, spoken monologue and some Q&A by Wills, Tape Face’s creator. Wills winds the crowd through Tape Face’s history. He was onstage playing the nonverbal character in his usual act but could not resist speaking. A fellow comic suggested that Wills pull gaffer tape over his mouth. It worked. The Tape Face character appeared in short segments until growing into an entity of its own.
In today’s pandemic protocols, you arrive at Harrah’s Showroom at an assigned, color-coded seating time to obey COVID-19 requirements. It means you’re in the theater for about an hour, including the pre-show presentation co-starring Christina Balonek as Phyllis Vanillis, before Tape Face actually begins his act.
The strategy is akin to seeing two performances in a single sitting. Fans expecting to see the nonverbal character right out of the gate might grow impatient. I checked my watch during a show last week, wondering when the Tape Face performance would actually start.
Guest magician Christopher Tallada has been performing briefly in each show for a crisp 30 seconds. Tyler Reed hosts. The narrator, a robed geezer named Harry Harrahs (played by Rob Ferries), talks continually from a seated position on stage left, yammering through Tape Face’s otherwise nonverbal routines.
The effect is like sitting next to someone who has seen Tape Face before and provides play-by-play of what we’re watching, including the routine in which the comic attempts to knock an apple off the head of a baby doll. The intended effect seems to be that Harrahs is just being a pain. If so, it works. The side character is yet another example of Wills invoking
a spoken component to the show.
Wills can easily perform an entire show verbally, and he turns in some funny talking moments. Early in the performance, he recalls his appearances on “America’s Got Talent,” when he threw a plunger at a toilet seat placed around the neck of celebrity judge Mel B.
As the comic said, the recording star found the bit inherently unfunny and could be heard shouting at the crew about being asked to wear a toilet seat onstage (“This is not how you treat a Spice Girl,” as Wills informed).
Wills said judge Simon Cowell was supposed to have been selected for that routine. But the executive producer and celeb judge sent word though the production on the day of Tape Face’s performance saying no act would be allowed to pull him onstage.
To this moment, Tape Face is convinced that a member of the crew tipped Cowell off and saved him the embarrassment of appearing in the show with a toilet seat around his neck. That image would be a meme for the ages, and a great talking point.
Supper club shutters
Rose. Rabbit. Lie., the second-level hideaway at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, has closed, at least for the foreseeable future, the company announced.
“Beginning Jan. 2, Rose. Rabbit.lie. will temporarily suspend operations,” Cosmopolitan officials said in a statement Monday. “We are hopeful that business levels will recover into the new year, from which operations will continue to be reevaluated.”
Saturday was last night of business at the supper club, which has presented dinner and live entertainment since the resort reopened in June. It is clear that the club can’t cover its operating costs with a 25 percent capacity directive in current COVID-19 protocols.
Ideally, the venue can reopen when those restrictions are relaxed. Propertywide, Cosmopolitan is also suffering from an absence of convention business.
At its signature supper club, Las Vegas favorites Skye Dee Miles and Savannah Lynx have fronted the band. Such unique acts as aerialist Jessica Delgado, tap-dance master Kenji
Igus and beat-box artist Jay R Beatbox have appeared through the night.
The Strip’s similarly styled nightspot, Mayfair Supper Club at Bellagio, remains open. The restaurant and nightclub also presents live entertainment with its dining options.