Friday, February 14, 2003 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

SHOW REVIEW: Amazing Johnathan expands on comedy-magic

Move to a larger showroom on the Strip gives manic entertainer more space to work his sadistic shtick

The Amazing Johnathan relocated to the Flamingo in January. Photo by Clint Karlsen.

There's no easy way to explain The Amazing Johnathan and his inspired cruelty, which is a sure sign of originality.

But here's a show business adage that comes close: It's said that when a stand-up comic finally perfects a routine that works, that's when he gets bored, drops it and starts all over again.

But when a variety act hits upon something that works, it's locked down for the next 30 years.

If that's the definition, then Johnathan's twisted comedy and pseudo-magic is a variety act with stand-up delivery. Those who caught a show during his 1 1/2 years at the Golden Nugget aren't going to see anything dramatically different in his new digs at the Flamingo, where he opened Jan. 18.

It's more like variations on a theme. The theme being the most extreme example of a guy we've all met: The type who will hold out something for you to grab, then pull it away and laugh hysterically.

"I could play with you like that for the next 10 minutes," he tells one victim. "I'd be perfectly happy."

He still comes onstage like a mean drunk, the kind you'd best let the bouncers tend to, with sinister eyebrows and wild hair stuffed under a headband.

He still opens the show with a slapstick bit of nastiness in which he torments his ditzy assistant, Psychic Tanya (Penny Wiggins). If you've seen it once, to see it again is ... well, not so shocking as it was the first time.

That's followed by more torture, in a trademark bit where he singles out a hapless guy in the audience to "volunteer" for a trick, then keeps him onstage for the next 45 minutes.

That leaves about 20 minutes to wind down, including a funny "puppet show" with a pair of white tiger plush toys. But there are a couple of reasons why Johnathan draws repeat business anyway.

First, there are always little twists. The Flamingo's larger stage offers some new opportunities to further torment the Tanya character, whose IQ continues to drop.

At one point, she interrupts whatever he's doing by running across the stage, chasing a banana extended from a hat with a stick. "If you guys are that bored," Johnathan berates his roadies, "I'll find you something to do."

The audience volunteer segment now culminates with a video that shows what happens when Johnathan purportedly leads the guy offstage to a back alley. Because the alley is still by the Nugget, we can assume this has been in the show for a time as well.

But even if the act never changed one word, Johnathan keeps the laugh level so near constant that it's worth seeing twice.

He's not the type of comedian to wind up big jokes with long set-ups. It's more of a continuously running patter, with lines added one by one from his '70s beginnings as a street performer on San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf.

One line follows another so quickly that you might miss one because you're laughing at the one before. But there's still room to improvise.

At one point, Johnathan storms offstage, usually to leave his recruit to squirm by himself: "Go ahead, funny boy! You need me."

But on this night, the volunteer -- a Las Vegan named Mike, and the rare instance when the imposing Johnathan found someone bigger to pick on -- goes right up to the microphone and starts to say something.

Johnathan wheels around and races to grab back the microphone. "I didn't know he had material," he tells the crowd.

The larger stage allows more "production value" during an acid trip sequence. More room to play with that may eventually lead to a stronger home stretch, which has always felt a bit anticlimactic once the volunteer is finally dismissed.

Johnathan says fans can look forward to an illusion with a genie in a bottle, a new grand entrance, some huge inflatable spiders and the possible return of an electrocution gag with Tanya.

As he and his henchmen settle into their year's run, it sounds like we can look forward to bigger, sillier antics in a playhouse that's already shaping into a contemporary spin on the Three Stooges. The meanest show in town only looks to get better.