“Bat Out of Hell, The Musical” Set for Paris Las Vegas

By Scott Roeben, on May 05 2022
4 min read 12 comments
Las Vegas Las Vegas Shows

“Bat Out of Hell, The Musical” is coming to Paris Las Vegas.

The show features the greatest hits of Meat Loaf and producer Jim Steinman.

We didn’t know who Jim Steinman was until today, so thanks to Paris for giving us the opportunity to become a noted rock music expert.

“Bat Out of Hell” kicks off at Paris on Sept. 27, 2022.

“Bat Out of Hell, The Musical” is described as a “‘Rocky Horror,’ ‘Romeo and Juliet’ celebration of star-crossed lovers from opposite sides of the tracks caught in a city teetering on the brink of disaster. When Raven falls in love with the rebellious Strat, all bets are off in this love-at-all-costs, rock-and-rollercoaster story based on uncompromising youth.”

Anyone else getting a strong “R.U.N.” vibe? Keep reading.

We’re trying to not be nervous about this show, but we’re really nervous. We can’t help it. We have a sixth sense about such things. We do love that the main character is named Strat, so that’s something.

So, we’ll set aside the cavalcade of red flags and vroom forward with more about the show!

The show will feature songs from the “Bat Out of Hell” albums, including “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night),” “Bat Out of Hell,” “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),” “Paradise By the Dashboard Light” and “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.”

We know several of those songs!

“Bat Out of Hell” by Meat Loaf was one of the best-selling albums in history, with more than 60 million copies sold worldwide.

The producers of this show probably should’ve stopped there, but they added, “In ‘Bat Out of Hell, The Musical,’ the chart-topping rock songs of Mr. Steinman propel an epic story of rebellious youth and passion as Strat, the immortal leader of The Lost, has fallen in love with Raven, the beautiful daughter of the tyrannical ruler Falco.”

The best way to describe our feelings about this is imagine witnessing a trainwreck, and a dumpster is ejected from the collision. The dumpster is on fire, and inside the dumpster there are massive flames coming from a cavalcade of red flags. And as you’re stomping out the red flag flames, you realize there’s fresh cattle manure wrapped inside every flag. And the manure has parasites. And the parasites are angry because they’re on fire, because who wouldn’t be?

But who doesn’t love the hits of Meat Loaf?

Sadly, Meat Loaf passed away on January 20, 2022. We get the weird feeling Meat Loaf wasn’t too involved with this production. Unconfirmed.

It’s hard to tell if they’re being ironic, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

That said, we hope “Bat Out of Hell, The Musical” becomes a huge hit at Paris!

That’s because Paris needs a hit.

The popular “Jersey Boys” closed at Paris in Sep. 2016, and nothing else has really stuck since.

“Marilyn” was a disaster (through no fault of the cast), closing after a handful of performances.

“Circus 1903” was a solid show, but failed.

Another valiant attempt, “Inferno,” went down in flames.

Could “Bat Out of Hell” break the curse of the Paris theater? The answer is “no,” but rhetorical questions are a time-honored tradition in snarky blog posts, so just play along.

Jukebox musicals have their fans, as does Meat Loaf.

Fun fact: “Bat Out of Hell,” the album, was released in 1977. That’s 44 years, or a hell-ton of time (and a couple of generations), ago.

Previous reviews for “Bat Out of Hell” are mixed. The first one we found described the show as “bonkers and strangely irresistible,” and said the plot is “as thin as a Rizla.” Also, the show is described as “an assault on the senses,” plus “if you’re looking for nuance, you’re in the wrong place.” The dialogue? “Toe-curlingly embarrassing.”

Today we also learned Rizla is a French brand of rolling papers. We need to get out more, apparently.

Another review gets to the point: “Let me make one thing clear: this is not an especially good musical.” But wait, there’s more, “Instead, whether intending to or not, Mr. Steinman, avante-garde director Jay Scheib, choreographer Xena Gusthart, their design collaborators, and cast have created something so absurdly non-self-serious and surprisingly self-aware that it actually works, and is genuinely entertaining.”

So, it sounds like you sort of have to be up for the ride with “Bat.”

Are you up for a show, as one reviewer put it, that’s “bizarrely incoherent for the first 15 minutes or so”?

Hell, maybe, we say!

Our sense is a Las Vegas casino isn’t really the place for “Bat Out of Hell.” But we’d love to be wrong. We aren’t really a musical theater person, and have a medical condition where we actually experience hives, dizziness and profuse bleeding from the eyes when witnessing jazz hands.

Drunk audiences are often up for some nostalgia and shows where they know the lyrics to all the songs.

A good gauge of whether “Bat” is for you is if you can make it through the entire one-minute sizzle reel.


 

You may also want to watch the excruciating, sorry exciting, special performance on Facebook in honor of the big announcement of “Bat” coming to Paris.

Ticket prices haven’t been announced yet, so that might be a deciding factor for those considering taking in “Bat Out of Hell” at Paris.

Our top tip: If you’re going to see this show, see it as soon as it opens! Just saying! (The over-under is three weeks, sorry.)

Visit the official “Bat Out of Hell” Web site for more details.