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Thursday, April 03, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Basement Files: A New Day

Celine Dion's revue, A New Day, opened at Caesars Palace last week to mixed reviews. But even the toughest critics were astonished by the lavish and technically sophisticated show's seamless premiere. Such perfection is the result of countless hours of planning and rehearsal by Dion and show designer Franco Dragone. Below are the transcripts of an early walk-through for the show's most stunning visual number, "The Power of Love."

CELINE: Okay, so I walk down the stairs toward center stage?

FRANCO: No, all is darkness. Like the unformed earth. And echoing through the hall are the whispers of our ancestors' failed dreams.

CELINE: So I am in the wings? Stage left?

FRANCO: Wait! A single spotlight, sharp and jagged like the gypsy's knife, slices a gaping hole in the cold darkness. Violence is done to darkness and entrails of light spill forth, illuminating man's cruel dance with death. Do you see?

CELINE: Yes. But slowly the light crawls toward Celine, yes?

FRANCO: No. It continues to stab at the helpless darkness, making a victim of its obscene innocence. The sound of tearing flesh and failing sinew is swirling everywhere, a growing crescendo of beautiful agony echoes in the mind until...SILENCE!

CELINE: So very powerful.

FRANCO: The spotlight finds a single man, pale and misshapen, who writhes to the perfect rhythmic pain only the soul can feel. We watch, transfixed, as a shell like that of a snail begins to grow from his back. He writhes from the unspeakable agony of transformation. But then he is fully formed and lurid colors begin to glow from within the lucite nautilus, with each concentric ring symbolizing Dante's hellish vision.

CELINE: I see.

FRANCO: Only then do we hear the first sweet sounds of your angel voice. Our snail man begins crawling toward the deadly salt of your voice, leaving behind a shimmering, opalescent trail of love's despair.

CELINE: And I step into the spotlight and...

FRANCO: No. Nothing so facile. The audience is like a child. It must be given love, yes, but also a spanking. I want them to squirm, reaching with symbolic hands to cover their buttocks from the cruel rain of our venomous blows. I want to hear their silent screams, as they beg us to stop and promise to be good boys and girls.

CELINE: A parent's love...

FRANCO: Only then can we caress their warm, reddened bottom with the loving hands of your voice. Listen to the melody, Celine. The notes fall like the tears of a guilty mother, dripping like a healing balm onto their welted buttocks.

CELINE: And now I am finally in spotlight?

FRANCO: Yes, with an ungainly stride you will move to center stage. All eyes are on you. Let them marvel at the curiously masculine bearing of your singing posture.

CELINE: Like this?

FRANCO: Yes. Brava. But open your knees even wider as you half-squat into powerful song. Your stick-like legs are obscenely splayed and yet there's nothing even remotely sensual about you.

CELINE: This is the gift of my ambiguous sexuality, yes?

FRANCO: Yes, my nightingale. You are frail and ethereal and yet somehow not feminine. In song, you expose all that you are and yet stir no hint of sexual heat. How to explain? Such a thing is but a kiss from the gods.

CELINE: This is when I'm concentrating on spastic movements of my arms?

FRANCO: Yes, let the music move through you and carry you into palsied, arrhythmic tremors. Let freedom and awkwardness compete for possession of your limbs. You must appear frantic and stilted, like a praying mantis on speed.

CELINE: Now do I strike my chest repeatedly?

FRANCO: Not yet, my dove. The stage is not yet set for such ascendant glory. You will move back toward the stairs and open the stage for the dancers.

CELINE: They are in front of me?

FRANCO: They are everywhere. Twelve angry spiny fish suddenly swarm all over you. But why are they so angry? They lunge at you, as if feeding from your flesh. And with each bite, the floating ribbon of their fish feces grows longer and longer.

CELINE: They move like clouds. So beautiful. And now I start knocking?

FRANCO: Yes. Rap your knuckles against the invisible aquarium glass and watch the fish scatter. It's only their fearful, frantic movements that finally break free the fecal ribbons, which slowly settle to the stage below. I love this effect.

CELINE: But I don't keep knocking.

FRANCO: No, you can stop. Okay...dancers...FREEZE! Look up, look up, and stretch your arms with exquisite feeling toward the giant floating placenta.

CELINE: You know, Rene and I were wondering if the placenta was really...

FRANCO: WHO IS THE GENIUS?

CELINE: Franco is the genius, but...

FRANCO: D'accord. Please, it is but the cycle of birth and decay. Smoke swirls within the placenta, but slowly escapes to reveal the Russian clown trapped within.

CELINE: But won't the eyes move toward the placenta?

FRANCO: Yes, as they should. Look at him! Look at Valery! His wet, red eyes plead for freedom through the clear walls of afterbirth. But he rests on a cushion of dead rabbits, as if to say life is but a dreary carnival of woe.

CELINE: Now do I hit myself?

FRANCO: Wait...wait until Valery vomits fire...Now, Celine! Now you are overcome by the passion of the Quebecois and you slam your fist against your paper-thin sternum.

CELINE: But I am walking forward for the big finish?

FRANCO: Well, yes, but you must step around the giant plecostomus which feeds from the fish ribbons.

CELINE: Oh, yes, now I remember.

FRANCO: Lights fall...and...c'est fini.