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SHOW REVIEW: Burton's tried-and-true show a family favorite

Magician's greatest feat might be rapport he establishes with audience members

You know what they say about people from the South: Just because they talk slow doesn't mean they are slow.

The same holds true for magician Lance Burton and his deceptively laid-back stage persona, which makes all the things that happen really fast in his show all the more surprising.

Burton has a good thing working. The bashful grin and Kentucky drawl are a good balance to the doves springing out of nowhere (his sleeves are rolled up) or the magician himself showing up unexpectedly in the audience, after a sucker-punch switch with one of his female dancer/assistants onstage.

It also allows him to combine the suave, ladies' man image of the traditional magician with the wide-eyed, overgrown kid personified by the late Doug Henning or Mac King, who was Burton's stage partner as a teen-ager and now performs at Harrah's Las Vegas.

Burton may be trying to look cool in that tuxedo, but his voice sounds like he's losing the battle not to burst into a giggle at every moment.

(Juggler and sidekick Michael Goudeau can't even begin to conceal his mirth as he takes on heroically juvenile feats such as eating three apples while juggling them.)

I've covered Burton's career since 1991. So it was hard not to notice, seeing him at the Monte Carlo again recently, that much of the current show is still a glorified version of his first self-produced turn at the Hacienda that year.

But a recent "This Is Your Life"--style roast of Burton by the Second City comedy troupe suggested this is not so much evidence of a lazy magician as one whose whole life has unfolded with a deliberate, gradual plan.

"How many people figure out at age 5 what they want to be, and then they are that thing?" asked comic actor Ed Goodman.

The troupe retraced a career in which the comic punch lines were sometimes redundant, from Burton's mother working at the Frito Lay plant in Louisville, Ky., and bringing home "trash bags full of potato chips," as Burton recalled, to early gigs in strip joints and third-rate theme parks.

Burton's first excursion to Los Angeles resulted in a "Tonight Show" booking in which Johnny Carson let him do his full 12-minute routine instead of cutting it down to five.

That "dove act," set to Antonio Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," still opens the Monte Carlo show. Burton tells audiences it's "the act I paid my rent with for 20 years."

Burton's stage banter also sticks to a script that has evolved through the years. That allowed Second City actor Seamus McCarthy to spoof the magician's early work at children's birthday parties: "OK, let's see which side of the birthday party gets the free drinks (by applauding louder)."

But he doesn't completely shun innovation either. A relatively new illusion offers a ridiculously complicated, Rube Goldberg-style contraption to "explain" the time-honored trick of pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

The illusion is perhaps a sign that when Burton does add something new, it's going to be worth the trouble and relatively fresh, not just a familiar trick repackaged. Such is the case of a '50s sci-fi sequence that dresses up the common trick of an assistant passing through Burton while he's locked inside a metallic robot monster.

Burton's show is arguably the best on the Strip for families. Even at a recent 10 p.m. performance, a call for "four or five" young volunteers had 16 of them rushing to the stage.

He's learned how to question the youngsters to maximum comic effect, getting more mileage out of a vanishing Corvette with a youngster in the driver's seat than he would with an adult.

It all works very well inside a Victorian-styled theater that disguises high-tech touches such as stereo sound effects. The flying cars seem all the more impressive in this warm, old-fashioned environment, which doesn't flash lights in your face or set off flash bombs to conceal the illusions.

Most of all, the stage comes with a set of steps down to the front row. The steps turn out to be the key fixture, allowing Burton to take a seat and chat up the crowd every now and then.

People feel like they know him by the time the show is over. That's perhaps the most impressive feat of all, and the key to repeat business for a guy who's likely to be a fixture on the Strip for as long as his lifelong career plan dictates.

MIKE WEATHERFORD
MORE COLUMNS

Magician Lance Burton should be able to look forward to many more years as a fixture on the Strip.
Photo by Jeff Scheid.

REVIEW

what: "Lance Burton: Master Magician"

when: 7 and 10 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays

where: Monte Carlo, 3770 Las Vegas Blvd. South

tickets: $54.95-$59.95 (730-7160)

grade: B+