David Cassidy on the Web
'EFX': A-OK on visuals, DOA on story
May 22, 1998
By Melissa Schorr
www.lasvegassun.com
"It is a tale ... full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -- William Shakespeare
Imagine if Hunter S. Thompson dropped some acid, stopped by Vegas, bumped into David Cassidy and revamped "Mystere." The result might be "EFX" -- a frenetic and stimulating show sure to give anyone sensory overload.
Though this production can boast more storyline than 95 percent of what plays on the Strip, that's still not saying much. The plot is still so utterly contrived to support the effects that one of the original song writers admited that his main task was writing music to coincide with spaceship landings.
But you don't see "EFX" for its plot development. You go for the effects, naturally.
The show bills itself as having 250 of them, and after experiencing firsthand hot gusts of fire (felt even from five rows back), lightning bolts, multiple waves of smoke and eye-singeing flashes of light, one stops counting and pretty much takes their word for it.
Sure, it's impressive -- the ground beneath you vibrates, James Earl Jones appears as an eerie floating head, the Flying Kaganovitch trapeze artists twirl through the air, the chorus is exuberant and the costumes and sets are stunning.
But all the live talent is swallowed whole by their overwhelming surroundings.
And take away those grand effects, and you are left with "EFX" -- the "story" of an ordinary bus boy ordered by four wizards to win back his lost love, Laura, by "using his imagination to find his heart." To do so, he must envision himself slaying a dragon like Sir Lancelot or escaping from a death defying act like Houdini or creating the Intergalatic Circus of Wonders as P.T. Barnum. This, you see, is supposed to impress the girl.
Unfortunately, Cassidy's character comes off as snarky and unsympathetic, and he is hampered by melodramatic, cartoonish co-stars and painfully corny lines.
Cassidy is at his best breaking away from the script and ad-libbing with the audience member who serves as his love object of the evening -- complete with "Partridge Family" jokes. But ultimately, the audience exits without a single stirring moment or even a repeatable tune to hum on the way to the car -- and that still matters to some theater aficionados. One suspects that Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber are sleeping soundly tonight.
