Get back A trip to Vegas proves that the best destination of all is behind the scenes BY ALAN OLIFSON

I’VE BEEN TO Las Vegas probably more than the average person. My college was less than a five-hour drive away (assuming speed limits through the Nevada desert are just helpful suggestions). As you can imagine, this proximity led to many a Meister Bräu–fueled poor decision. Much financial and liver damage in my life has followed the phrase, "Hey, if we leave now, we could be in Vegas by two."

Amazingly, though, I still love Las Vegas. Even more amazingly, my girlfriend, Jess, loves Las Vegas. We like to think we complement each other. (Other people may use the word enable. I’m not here to argue semantics.)

But a few weeks ago, despite all our combined Vegas experience, we did something in that city that neither of us had ever done before. We went to a show.

Most Las Vegas shows look like the result of a brainstorming session involving a white board with the words "topless," "women," and "rock" written on it. ("Make a show out of these — but not a strip club.") This is how you end up with things like the Stratosphere’s Bite: "a production filled with topless female vampires, singing, dancing and cavorting," while "classic rock ’n’ roll songs are spliced together to reveal the story." Awesome. Vegas has really perfected the art of taking something that a lonely businessman might pay $3.99 to watch on SpectraVision in his motel room, and charging $50 to watch it in a 1000-seat auditorium with your pants on.

So, usually, no shows for us. We stick to the blackjack tables, where at least it seems normal to keep your pants on.

But our recent Vegas trip presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We went with a couple whose friend was in Cirque du Soleil’s production of Mystère, and he offered to get us front-row seats and take us backstage after the show.

Yes, backstage at Cirque du Soleil. Visions of midgets in Mardi Gras masks walking around on stilts and pouring martinis for French contortionists dressed like birds danced through my head. (I’m not sure why it seemed so appealing.)

Backstage is such an intriguing idea. Maybe because most of us don’t have a backstage in our lives. We have our offices, our desks, our cubicles. If we’re lucky, maybe there’s a break room with a good vending machine. It’d be nice if, after making a salient point at a meeting or firing off a particularly effective e-mail, I could exit backstage, drop my mask of nonchalance, and celebrate. "Yes! Nice use of the word ‘empower.’ Have a shot."

Of course, having spent a few years traveling the Midwest as a stand-up comedian, I’m well aware that "backstage" can often mean just a utility closet with two folding chairs, an ashtray, and a wall covered with doodles of talking penises. But Cirque du Soleil? In Vegas? Come on. That had to be good. Maybe I’d end up in a three-way with a trampoline expert dressed as a cat. (Again, not sure where these fantasies were coming from. I’m not going to lie; it’s a bit of a concern.)

So the day of the show, there I was at Coco’s, eating a Biggie Breakfast with a Cirque du Soleil Chinese-pole expert named Jason. (Only in Vegas.) Chinese poles, besides being a very funny phrase, are a specialized Cirque act in which performers climb up a series of vertical poles while holding their bodies at right angles to the ground. Then, keeping their bodies completely perpendicular, they jump from pole to pole. Needless to say, each of Jason’s shoulders was the size of my head.

Jess and I spent the whole meal grilling the poor guy about circus life, as I tried not to spit coffee out of my nose every time someone said "Chinese pole." He told us stories about the international Cirque training facility in Montreal, and how he had to learn Russian to communicate with his Chinese-pole partners (dammit, coffee really hurts coming out of your nose).

The show itself was amazing. Most live performances try to focus your attention; Cirque tears at it. People dressed in all manner of spandex climbed down walls — upside-down — as drummers dropped from the ceiling on bungee cords and a man glided across the stage on top of a giant rubber ball. That was the first three minutes. From there things got hectic. The whole spectacle ended with the inexplicable appearance of a 50-foot inflatable snail. Thank you, good night. Very French.

We were shuttled out the theater doors to the Mystère lobby, which sits inside the Treasure Island Casino. Blackjack tables and slot machines bustled a mere 20 yards away — the gamblers oblivious to the fact that scantily clad men and women had just defied all laws of physics moments earlier. As we waited for Jason, I started preparing for the backstage tour by practicing my look of feigned nonchalance: Oh, a naked trapeze artist, no big deal.

Then Jason appeared, wearing the same outfit from Coco’s, all traces of Cirque du Soleil gone. After our congratulations and general expressions of awe, he said what I had been waiting all day to hear.

"Well, you guys want to see backstage?"

"Um, yeah, I mean, sure, I guess."

He opened the doors to the theater, waved us past security, and led us into the now-darkened room. Silence.

It’s amazing how quickly a circus can disappear. No contortionists, no naked trapeze artists. Not even a drunken stilt walker. Just a few techies in black T-shirts sweeping the floor and rolling up some errant cables. Nevertheless, the backstage tour was still pretty amazing: rows of weird costumes, a hydraulic stage that could be raised more than 50 feet, a training room complete with full a trapeze set. But what really struck me was the normalcy of it all: lockers with family photos taped inside; bulletin boards covered with announcements and inside jokes; vending machines filled with Snickers and M&M’s.

It was a giant break room.

Maybe if Jason ever comes to visit my workplace, I can show him our backstage: the network-server room. I bet he’d get a real kick out of that.

Find Alan Olifson’s virtual backstage at www.olifson.com