Deborah Gibson shifts from alligator thriller to 'Jungle Fantasy' in new Cirque Dreams productionBY Phil Roura
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, July 31st 2010, 4:00 AM
Deborah Gibson stars in the Connecticut production of 'Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy' at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods, running through Sept. 1.
Gibson looks like hell. Her golden locks are matted with guck. Her face is smeared with muck. And her clothes are a mess.
"People are looking at me," she says over the phone from California. "I'm at a pay phone in some sort of firehouse and there are emergency vehicles and gawkers all over the place.
"I've just fought off a python and battled giant alligators in a swamp. Now, they've dragged me off to talk to you. Looking like this. So thanks a lot!" she says, laughing.
That was a couple of weeks ago, after filming a scene for a new movie for the Syfy channel, "Mega Python vs. Gatoroid." Since then, the one-time teen star has cleaned up beautifully to star in the Connecticut production of "Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy" at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods, running through Sept. 1. She is the first marquee name in the history of the brand to cavort with tumblers, jugglers, twirlers and fliers.
Gibson plays Mother Nature — and if that's a bitter pill to swallow, it's because you remember her as 17-year-old Debbie Gibson bubble-gumming "Foolish Beat" up the charts to No. 1 in 1988.
"I'm like the narrator in 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,'" she explains. "I like the quiet power that the character brings to the tribal aspects of the show. The score straddles the two worlds of pop and musical theater."
Gibson turns 40 on Aug. 31, but as a teen she was America's first real Pop Princess — before drugs and booze became a part of the package. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Merrick, L.I., she started singing at 5 and by the time she was 17, she had a hit album, "Out of the Blue," which produced four top-5 singles. A year later, it was "Electric Youth," and kids were singing "Lost in Your Eyes."
The aura eventually dissipated. By 2005 she was doing a pictorial for Playboy to advance her single "Naked." The song barely reached No. 35 on the Billboard charts.
In between, someone conjured up a fierce rivalry between her and fellow '80s teen singer Tiffany, which, according to Gibson, wasn't real. "Actually, we were very close friends," she says. "I never could understand why we needed to compete." Coincidentally, Tiffany also posed nude for Playboy. And now, they're co-starring in "Mega Python vs. Gatoroid." Go figure.
Still, Gibson seems to be more comfortable on a stage. So, when Cirque Dreams creator Neil Goldberg offered her the chance to share the spotlight with his spectacular acrobatic circus at Foxwoods, she said yes.
"Naturally, it intrigued me," she says. "They made my character a brassier, beltier part."
"I love doing musical theater," adds Gibson, who has played Eponine in "Les Miserables" on Broadway, Anna in "The King and I" in California and Velma in "Chicago" in Boston. "This is groovy."
Even if it's a jungle, it's good to be out of the swamp.
