After stints at the Tropicana and Stardust, magician Rick Thomas has taken his afternoon show to The Orleans. Photo by Jane Kalinowsky.

Rick Thomas is even more adaptable than his white tigers.

The tigers, a distinctly Vegas phenomenon, began as a genetic fluke somewhere in India and they are preserved through dedicated breeding.

Thomas is coming up on 10 years as a Las Vegas magician, having opened shop at the Tropicana in the summer of 1997. Without any scientific edge against Vegas Darwinism, he survived the really bad guess of leaving the Trop in 2005, when he figured the venerable casino wasn't long for this world.

He jumped ship to the Stardust -- which, of course, is the casino that now sits dark and awaiting implosion. The Tropicana replaced him with Dirk Arthur without batting an eye. But Boyd Gaming moved Thomas (along with a lot of Stardust staffers) over to The Orleans, where he hit the ground running with the latest variation of his long-running afternoon show.

At least for the holiday season, Thomas had no problem coaxing people away from the Strip for as many as three shows per day. The off-Strip location is balanced by a $33 ticket that's one of the few entertainment bargains in Las Vegas today, and the only matinee with a dramatic sense of scale.

The show begins with the likable magician floating down to the stage. Later, in a winning twist on the standard levitation, he floats to catch up to his elevated assistant to make her vanish.

Motorcycles, birds and tigers also come with the deal. The assistant goes into a cage and she is replaced by a white tiger. While the tiger lazily basks in the glory, a parrot goes into a second cage and is transformed into the assistant.

Other parts aren't so cool anymore. The show seems to waste some of its tight hour's length with a couple of those funny cabinets -- like the bisected coffin that "stretches" a gal while we see a hand and a wiggly stockinged foot -- whose secrets are probably enough in the public domain that they could be dragged to the curb.

Of course, there's always that first visit to a magic show. If you're in the company of a couple of wide-eyed 7-year-olds, you shut your mouth, watch their faces instead, and see a new argument for a couple of the old classics.

Thomas makes it easier to justify another old standby, sawing the gal in half, with the twist of bringing audience volunteers onstage to hold straps tied to her feet and neck. (Of course, if you've seen Penn & Teller first, this one also loses a bit of mystery.)

And he's done his show long enough that ballroom dancing has cycled back into vogue. A segment in which he explains an unusual childhood -- being raised in a family of dance instructors -- could even be taken a bit further now that the trend is so strong. It helps give the magician a distinct characteristic beyond his nice-guy demeanor and comic commentary.

Now that Thomas is based in a locals-oriented casino, it's tempting to suggest he make a dedicated effort to refresh the show for repeat visitors. But he's always tinkering with this or that segment, and the new opening he describes on the phone sounds pretty good.

And if he's too busy working two or three shows per day to back up and give the whole enterprise a hard appraisal, then perhaps he doesn't need to. Chances are he will find out between now and spring break, now that the holiday magic has worn off.