Magic Mike Live: how the 'feverish spectacle' survived a pandemic – and made it to Australia
Magic Mike Live doesn’t seem like the kind of show that would survive a pandemic.
The global dance spectacular, inspired by the 2012 film of the same name, has been described as a “feverish spectacle”. The Australian production houses sweaty dancers, screaming women and an international crew inside what’s said to be the largest spiegeltent in the world: a tent that’s been hand-built and shipped by boat from a small village in Belgium.
This time last year Channing Tatum announced the local run of shows surrounded by a dozen shirtless male dancers in Melbourne’s crowded Plaza Ballroom. “It’s a dance show you can actually touch,” he boasted. “Don’t forget that.”
Just a few months later the performing arts industry was shut down, borders were closed, and touching muscly strangers – as Channing Tatum wanted us to do – became a criminal act. Miraculously, the tent will finally open next week.
But audiences should expect some clear directions about what they can and can’t touch.
Building a ‘modern-day Eden’
Magic Mike Live startedas Channing
Tatum’s running joke on the set of the first film: what if we actuallytoured a stripshow? It’s now a blockbuster franchise with productions in Las Vegas, London and Berlin.
Australia was the next wild plan. Tatum wanted to tour with an elaborate spiegeltent that would travel from city to city. A local cast was trained and Het Spiegelpaleis – a 100year-old, family-run Belgian business – was commissioned to build the venue. It was named The Arcadia, “because it’s like a modern-day Eden”.
In February, everything was ready to go for a May premiere. The cast and crew travelled to the small village of Oostmalle to put the finishing touches on The Arcadia and rehearse. They even put on two invite-only performances for the locals as word spread about town.
It turns out that was a hot ticket. No one has seen the show since.
As production supervisor Don Gilmore puts it, “we’re building this worldwide extravaganza out here in the middle of the cornfields ... [and then] the world changed into a completely different place. A show of this type and this complexity under the best of circumstances, pre-Covid, was a difficult undertaking. There was nothing easy about it. And then you add the past nine months into the mix.”
Those nine months have involved rolling contingency plans for opening night – jumping from Melbourne to Perth to Sydney – and complex new issues around visas, safety restrictions and storage.
The Arcadia was on the ocean when the pandemic hit. The US-based crew had to deal with 28 marooned sea containers in Australia while also furloughing shows in London and Berlin and managing construction on a new venue in Las Vegas.
“There was enough cash on hand to manage the crisis ... but with Covid, no one really knows [what could happen next],” Gilmore says. Opening night, he says, will be “hugely emotional” for the cast and crew.
“It was on again, off again, on again, off again, and the clock was ticking and the [cash] reserves were drying up … The effort and talent and dedication it’s taken to get us to this point: I have to tell you, I have never seen anything like it.”
Socially distanced pleasure
Magic Mike Live will also be emotional for its audience, many of whom have not experienced a live show in nearly a year.
Alison Faulk, the show’s co-director and choreographer – who also choreographed the original film – wants to put people at ease. She says there’s a reduced capacity crowd; a social bubble for the cast and crew including weekly Covid tests; and, most notably, all interaction between the dancers and audience is capped at 1.5 metres.
“Everything we do is safe,” she says. “The way we explain it in the show is kind of fun, it doesn’t take you out of the moment.”
“I’m just really happy to put some love and light and fun back into the world. After this crazy year, I can’t wait to see the people in the audience experience a live show. And not just any live show, but one that’s tailored for women. It’s literally tailored for pleasure.”
Gilmore agrees: “I think it is definitely the anti-Covid show – in all re
spects.”
Magic Mike Live is certainly tailored for pleasure, but it will be interesting to see how it fares without physical intimacy. In the audition process, the dancers were judged on their ability to connect with a woman during a lap dance and how they spoke about their mums. They were always expected to get up close and personal.
International versions of the show have even featured a slow dance with members of the audience. Faulk says that women have become emotional with the men in these moments: “Some women say things like ‘I just got divorced and I really needed this’. Some women have had husbands that passed and say ‘I haven’t hugged a man since my husband has passed’.
“We still have a version of that [in the Australian production],” she says. “It’s not that, but I think it is really special as well … You still get to be a part of the show.”
“The year has been so dark. It’s just been so dark. I just cannot wait to put a smile on people’s faces.”
• Magic Mike Live opens in Sydney on 20 December; it will be in Melbourne from June 2021