‘All In: The Poker Musical’ a poor addition to Las Vegas entertainment

I squirmed through much of this thing called "All In: The Poker Musical" which was given a preview concert at the Rio Masquerade Showroom last week. (Actually it was a preview of a preview. Performers did an hour's worth of singing, some staged, and folks were charged up to 50 bucks for the privilege.)

The evening began with poker hero Phil Hellmuth telling us that lyricist/composer Tim Molyneux was going to be the next Andrew Lloyd Webber, and that "All In" was going to be running "40 or 50 years from now." If that's true, it's time we Nevadans with concern for the arts head to higher ground because our children will simply not be safe.

If you didn't know who Molyneux was, you were out of luck because reportedly Hellmuth got so miffed that his name was misspelled in the press-night program notes, that he refused to allow the notes to be distributed.

Then Molyneux took to the stage to tell us how amazed his friends were that he was writing a musical about poker. I got the feeling Molyneux doesn't have much knowledge about the direction the musical form has taken in the past 30 years. Is he aware we've had song-and-dance stories about Vietnam, French revolutions, AIDS, serial killers and even chess?

But you expect hyperbole with a guy plugging his stuff. What you don't expect is for him to disrespect the genre he's chosen to put on public display.

We heard about a dozen songs. They had titles such as "I've Got a Full House When I'm Paired Next to You." His country laments included, "She showed me her pair, I showed her mine/ She played the front, I liked to play behind." It's what might pass for wit among inebriated adolescents. Molyneux thinks it's OK to rhyme words like "babies" with "ladies" and "together" with "forever." And his idea of depth is, "The game of life is just like poker." I hope they put that one on billboards all over town so that we can all become better people by it.

I was drooling over the enormous talents of the cast (which included the forever delectable Reva Rice and the impossible-not-to-love crooner Jimmy Lockett). But if "All In" continues its development in the same vein and finds success, it could single-handedly set back Vegas' recently earned reputation for intelligent entertainment.

If people here have the money to mount original musicals, why don't they first respect their ambitions by learning how musicals are constructed? Maybe that's why local producers are afraid of New York. They know that theatergoers there can spot a fake half-a-Sabrett away.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.