Las Vegas’ two faces

By Joe Brown

Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Ten Yale University architecture students were in town last week to study the Strip’s shopping and entertainment centers. Led by Washington, D.C.-based architect David M. Schwarz, who is designing the Smith Center for the Performing Arts for Las Vegas’ downtown, the group plans to produce a book on the design and future of the Strip.

Schwarz asked me, as a cultural reporter and critic for the Las Vegas Sun, to meet the students over breakfast at Main Street Station to discuss the Las Vegas cultural scene.

A few thoughts I shared with the students over the buffet bustle:

There are at least two Las Vegases. There’s the Strip and there’s the huge population of locals who rarely visit it unless they work there or have guests in town.

A few green shoots of artistic vitality have sprouted in the Vegas Valley — a symphony, a ballet company, an art museum and galleries, theater troupes, music festivals — but they’re all off-Strip.

Most of all, Las Vegas is a photo op backdrop, a series of facades for tourists. The props are obvious — the Eiffel Tower and the Luxor pyramid, the bronze Crazy Horse dancers and so on.

More and more reality shows — “The Hills,” “The Real World,” “So You Think You Can Dance” and “The Next Food Network Star” — are using Vegas as a stage set and taping here.

Our city is projected as an aspirational place today. TV contest hosts used to say, “You’re going to Hollywood.” Now it’s, “You’re going to Las Vegas!”

This has become a simulacrum city, full of replicas and effigies and impersonators.

And it’s a rerun city. Nostalgia dominates, a very tightly defined nostalgia — as seen on TV, or heard on AM radio when you or your parents were kids. Hence, Donny & Marie.

The nostalgia clock will eventually tick forward. Maybe we’ll see a “Brady Bunch” show someday.

The old-style shows based on a single performer still make big money but seem to be waning.

These shows are basically autopilot affairs — Bette Midler, Cher, Elton John (Barry Manilow is the exception) — and a theme park ride, with the entertainer stepping in and pressing Go. There’s little room for spontaneity or audience interaction.

For the most part, Las Vegas doesn’t want to know about now. Only the familiar and safe need apply. This year, for instance, Bjork couldn’t sell out. We get some mainstream metal, country, some hip-hop, but not much quirky, indie, acoustic music. For classical music and real jazz, look off-Strip.

Las Vegas is a symbolic city and a city of symbols. It’s a city of little language. Smart, scripted shows such as “The Producers” and “Spamalot” struck out, but Cirque works. And Celine. And Blue Man Group and “Mamma Mia!” Magicians and acrobats and wordless spectacles appeal to worldwide visitors.

On the horizon: “Daylife.” Casinos are drawing a younger crowd by monetizing outdoor resort areas and holding enormous all-day pool parties.

The nightclubs du jour are overrun with reality stars. If “American Idol” doesn’t set up shop here, I’ll be shocked.

The Strip changes every week, even every day. We just had Mexican Independence Day, which drew more than 100,000 Hispanics to the city for concerts and boxing. Chinese New Year and the lucky month of August bring Asians. UFC and NBA games, Red Hat Ladies and rockabilly conventions bring in crowds that change the complexion.

Visitors are generally happy, determined to have a good time, create stories to tell, show that they know how the game works, how to grease a palm, feel like a player who got past the velvet rope.