Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Vegas lowers its ‘Freaks’ flag to half-mast

Freaks

Beverly Poppe

What’s an unemployed drill guy to do?

Add Freaks to the lengthening parade of shows and showfolk leaving Las Vegas. This afternoon, producer Anthony Cools issued a terse announcement that the Las Vegas Strip’s only (professional) display of carny oddities is going dark at the upstairs showroom at O’Shea’s, effective immediately.

More

More Freaks
Hanging out with the cast of Freaks (4/9/09)
Joe Brown's Freaks review (Las Vegas Sun, 4/6/09)

I’m shedding a sincere, silent tear for this cheerily rinky-dink show, which I called, after it opened in April, “the little show that could… Could make you watch most of it with your hands over your eyes… Could make you throw up in your mouth a little.”

Yes, this precisely titled, bite-sized sideshow brought a bit of Coney Island, Tijuana and even Bangkok to the Strip, and though audiences may not have filled the 175-seat showroom enough to keep the Freaks flag flying, those who didn’t walk out were hilariously horrified at all the just-right wrongness they had survived.

Freaks!

Las Vegas is well known for its nightlife, but now that O' Sheas has opened its doors to Anthony Cools and his Freaks! sideshow, the residents of this town better prepare for their worlds to be turned upside down.

Let’s hope the Vegas economy can find a place for a suddenly unemployed glass-eater, a weightlifter (he lifted weights from chains attached to his eye sockets) and the woman who shoots darts out of her hoohah.

Any existing reservations for the show will be refunded in full. Persons seeking refunds should contact the O’Sheas box office at 733-3333.

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