Las Vegas travelers usually have a basic idea of what to expect in the true city that never sleeps. With plenty of casinos, all-night buffets, city-wide mafia tours and enough disrobed women to start a nudist colony, one may think that former child stars and clean-cut Mormons Donny and Marie would stand out in Vegas like a sore thumb.
However, the brother-sister duo has been headlining at the Flamingo for a few years now, and their act continues to grow in popularity. I guess, in Vegas, nothing's shocking anymore.
Donny and Marie have been famous for half a century. Marie, the younger of the siblings, began singing with her famous family of entertainers at only three years of age. Donny, crooner extraordinaire with his hit Puppy Love, was a star on The Andy Williams show at the tender age of five. Over the years, the duo has made a comfortable living entertaining.
Like most lifelong stars, Donny and Marie have a healthy fan base, who never missed an opportunity to catch them perform hits old and sketches. Many fans of the duo's show at the Flamingo bubblegum style, hoping to relive the magic of a bygone era. However, Donny and Marie show a little 'different from what most expect.
For starters, the show is more "adult". And this does not mean that the uber-religious couples have started to curse or bearing all over the stage. There is nothing to go on like this. It simply means that they have missedthe otherwise cheesy childhood antics and deliver real music performances while on stage.
Even though the Donny and Marie act has always been somewhat slapstick, their respective singing talents have never been in question. After about fifteen minutes of lighthearted comedy together, the duo splits up and each member takes about a twenty-five minute set to perform old classics and even some new recordings.
Throughout much of the show, fans see a completely different act than what they thought they were arriving for. There are no cue card acts like the Osmond's of old, and the teen angst that made Donny famous is nowhere to be found. But after the siblings' solo sets, they rejoin on the stage and bring it home with a little together time.
After the duo returns to the stage, they launch into a huge production of Rock This Town. There's also a hint of a striptease coming from Marie, but, of course, she's "rescued" in the nick of time by some costume-wearing Ballerini.
One of the highlights for fans looking for the "old" Donny and Marie-style, back-end of the event. Using his Dancing with the Stars appearance, Marie begins to dance, and she is from Donny, who said to a brother-sister-vs. Survival-of-dance-contest fittest.
All in all, the show seems to be decent, and Las Vegas in general is enjoying nice to have something the whole family.
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