Circus 1903

Circus 1903 is The Rare Las Vegas Show That Disappoints


Blonde4ever has a love and passion for all Las Vegas shows except for the new Circus 1903 show at Paris. 

Let me preface this by saying that I love shows. Almost all shows. I go into every show I see with the expectation of being entertained and delighted. Sadly I was neither at Circus 1903.

Circus 1903 opened in July at Paris Las Vegas. It is meant to take us back to a simpler time when circuses were the most thrilling thing going.

I hate to disparage any show but I was truly bored to tears during this one and had I not had to crawl over several people to escape I would have left sooner.  But, since I did, I stayed for the whole thing.

The showroom in Paris was three-quarters empty.  That situation is always discouraging from the get-go.
The ringmaster, Willy Whipsnade, was gracious and amusing. I liked him. The most comical part of the show was when he brought four children up on stage and interacted with them. You never know what children are going to do so as expected, it was hilarious.

I adored the puppet elephants, Queenie and Peanut.  I have never seen anything quite like them before. Even though you can partially see the puppeteers operating them, they are convincing and impressive.  I also appreciated not having to worry if real animals were being well taken care of.

But the majority of the show put me to sleep. There were acrobats, tightrope walkers, jugglers etc.  I fully acknowledge that I  could never do what these people do and that they are very skilled and talented, however, a Vegas show should excite you. There was nothing about this that had any wow factor.

Circus 1903 is an excellent show for children; for adults, not so much.

 

11 thoughts on “Circus 1903 is The Rare Las Vegas Show That Disappoints

  1. I agree with everything, Heard it was good. Found out I get free tickets for being Total Rewards Diamond so I was stoked about seeing this. Soooooooo underwhelmed. Ringmaster was the best part. It seemed like there was a lot of mistakes being made by the performers. I was surprised the theater was less than half full. I don’t seeing it last

  2. I’m same as Randy above — free tickets for Diamond. And same as you since I love going to shows, especially in Vegas. But same as both of you — extremely disappointed. Agree ringmaster and little kids from audience did make me laugh out loud, but the rest of the show was a resounding thud. I believed this was a great way to get a 1 1/2 hour reprieve from the casino, but within 10 minutes, I was thinking about which game I was going to run to as soon as the show ended. Sad, since I was so stoked before I went to see this.

  3. Thank you for the extremely useful article. We will be heading to Vegas for New Year’s Eve and I had this show at the top of our to do list. I was hoping to have the same experience at this show that I remembered seeing as a kid, you know, something like Barnum/Bailey or Shriners (if anyone can remember those). Anyhow, thanks to this great info, we will be crossing Circus 1903 off the nice list and moving it to the naughty list.

  4. I had a chance to see this show and did not have such a harsh opinion that you did. First to set expectations, this is not a Cirque show. If you go into this show measuring it to that standard it’s unfair. Rather I looked at this show as a more theatrical piece meant to be viewed much like a play. Visually I think the production was pretty stunning the elephants, costumes, and music do evoke the experience of a 1903 period. I thought the characters interactions were both playful and affectionate with the elephants. Having seen War Horse national production the actors got the movements down perfect. The ringmaster was a talented actor who I found entertaining and whimsical. While the show has some slow parts in scene transitions, this is a theatrical style no different that most theater. It’s not a high energy musical production, nor a Cirque show, or even a headline type show.

    Reading your review it sounds like you had the wrong expectations going in, and to be honest it reads like a 6th grade book report. If you are going to be critical of the production, you should be a little more specific to the parts that you felt the actors failed to achieve the goal of portraying a turn of the century circus. All art is experienced differently by people, it sounds like you blame the show for your inability to be entertained, not the quality of the production. That being said, Vegas might not be the best venue for this production. Avenue Q is another example of an incredible musical that did not reach the level of success in Vegas when Wynn brought to Vegas. Its still doing great off Broadway in New York.

    1. Whoa! Hey Doug, it’s called an opinion. Glad you enjoyed the show, one of our more respected writers did not, leave it at that. And to be fair, your comment sounds like a whiny 10-year old who is upset.
      The simple solution to your dislike of our reviews is to quit reading and stay off the site.

    2. Also…to add to LVJunkie’s comments, I was in no way comparing this show to Cirque. As I stated, I walked in the door expecting to be happily entertained for an hour. I wasn’t.
      Opinions…we all have them

  5. Thank you for your review! The elephants do look pretty neat, but if the rest of the show is basic juggling, tightrope walking and the like, I can imagine being pretty bored. I’ll be sure to steer clear of this one, I’ve still got Defending the Caveman at the top of my list :)

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