‘LEGENDS’ CONCERT NOT THE STUFF OF LEGENDS

The press kit for “Legends in Concert,” a glitzy Las Vegas revue that has opened a summer run at Knott’s Berry Farm, describes the show as a “tribute to a select few of the superstars of yesterday.”

In truth, however, Tuesday’s 48-minute production was simply a parade of caricatured images of five deceased entertainers: Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Buddy Holly, Janis Joplin and Marilyn Monroe. It’s sort of a wax museum that moves.

Named “1985 Show of the Year” by the Greater Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, “Legends” has been transported with original cast, stage, laser lights and multi-media effects intact to Knott’s 2,100-seat Good Time Theatre, where it continues with three performances daily, except Wednesdays, through Labor Day.

The problem with tribute shows in general--and this production is no exception--is that they are content to deliver nothing more than physical and vocal likenesses of famous personalities. The mere re-creation of appearances is a hollow feat, so the only way to avoid a sideshow atmosphere would be to explore through their words and music the qualities that made those artists unique.

Yet there were all the stereotypes: a nerdish-looking Buddy Holly decked out in a garish black-and-white plaid sport coat; a pouting, buxom Marilyn Monroe fitted in the famous white halter dress; and a squat Janis Joplin looking like she had just emerged from a head-on collision with a Salvation Army truck.

Peter McGann, who appeared as John Lennon in the original Broadway production of “Beatlemania,” embarrassingly portrayed Lennon ca. 1969--white suit, collar-length hair and round, wire-framed spectacles--singing such early Beatles hits as “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!”

The Elvis on parade in “Legends” was not the dynamic, playfully sexy Presley of the ‘50s nor the commanding, revitalized performer of the late ‘60s. Instead, impersonator Jonathon Von Brana presented the high-collared, mumble-mouthed Elvis of the mid-’70s, when “The King” had become a sad parody of himself.

Anyone who gets in the mood for a genuinely moving visual and aural tribute to great entertainers of the past would be better served by popping in a cassette of Presley’s “Sun Sessions” or Lennon’s first solo album and thumbing through “The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll.”

But even the dead deserve better than “Legends in Concert.”