Soprano's Last Supper

Last supper laughs

By Jamie Helmick

It’s that moment. You know the one. You’re sitting in a Vegas show and the actor or magician or hypnotist, clown, whatever, announces they’re going to pick someone out of the audience to become part of the show.

Your heart races – do you raise your hand? Would you go if called? How embarrassing, how thrilling. All that anticipation and anxiety and then the guy three seats down gets picked instead of you.

But not at the Soprano’s Last Supper.

Not only do you become a part of the show, so does that guy three seats down, and the guy next to him, and the girl across the room – actually, everyone in the room.

Touting itself as “comedy redefined” the Soprano’s Last Supper brings you right into the action as the Baritone family (an alias…get it?) throws one last party at the Bada Bang nightclub after Tony’s indictment and impending incarceration.

Along the way, you meet a cast of characters that may seem somewhat familiar to fans of a certain premium channel mob drama, but there’s no affiliation between the supper and the show and characters and settings have their differences.

Guests are assigned to different “families” for the evening – the Salamis, the Provolones, you get the idea. But don’t be prepared to kick back and be entertained without working a little.

As soon as you enter the venue, the experience begins. Characters mill about the seating area, interacting with guests, talking about “family” dealings – it may seem confusing at first, but just go with it. It’s easy to tell the folks at the show having the most fun are the ones embracing their new family and playing along with whatever conversations the actors cook up.

The show begins and there are few scenes with just the actors on stage, explaining the premise, but things quickly move back out into the audience.

There’s dancing, accusations and money changing hands (although in place of Ben Franklin’s mug on the bills is a shot of Tony “Baritone”), everything you would expect from a parody of life as an Italian made man.

As the actors (and actresses – Soprano daughter Meadow, Tony’s psychiatrist and dancer Dee Dee Diamond show the female side of the tough guy world) engage audience members in the show, the plot is propelled forward and without giving too much away – everything’s not as it seems. Have a little more faith in Tony than that.

The Soprano’s Last Supper is definitely not your typical Vegas show and, considering the story, it’s not hard to imagine that things get a little loud and brash sometimes, so if your sensibilities are particularly delicate, you might want to see a different show. Talk to Tony about that, he probably knows a guy.