Las Vegas magicians share their favorite illusions that leave audiences guessing
In the wake of Steve Wyrick’s impressive recent magic trick — vanishing entirely from the Las Vegas stage — we asked the Strip’s remaining prestidigitators to name their favorite illusions and tell us why they like them.
Tricks are like children to these professionals. “It’s hard to choose a favorite,” as Lance Burton told us. So nailing them to just one choice required some magic of our own.
DIRK ARTHUR
Tropicana
Trick: Fire Sphere
About 10 minutes into his set, Dirk Arthur’s female assistant enters a hollow disco ball measuring 3.5 feet in diameter. The magician penetrates it with flaming spears, then opens the lid. Fire shoots toward the ceiling, and a white tiger is revealed inside the ball.
It’s the latest revamp of an illusion Arthur says he invented about 20 years ago in Los Angeles, by combining two old magic standards: the mirror ball and the sword basket.
“I was completely broke, and building an act was a dream,” he said. “But I was like, ‘Wait! I know!’ ”
Arthur favors the trick now because the tiger is new to his act, “and you never know, when you have a brand new cat, what exactly it’s gonna do.”
LANCE BURTON
Monte Carlo
Trick: Magic Hands
For 25 years, Lance Burton has dressed up a member of his audience as a magician — top hat and cape — and had him or her perform close-up magic. This is possible because Burton substitutes his arms for the audience member’s.
“Audience participation is my favorite because it’s never the same,” he said.
This trick is not performed every night, however, because it occurs during a point in the show Burton always leaves open.
“When the show starts, I don’t know what trick I’m gonna do when I get to that point,” he said. “I’m studying the audience the whole show, looking at people.”
If Burton sees a particularly animated woman, for instance, he might alternately float her in the air or saw her in half. A goofy-looking kid might warrant something entirely different.
“It’s the part of the show I don’t have any control over,” Burton said. “Whoever’s there that night, I have to work with.”
NATHAN BURTON
Flamingo
Trick: Microwave of Death
In Nathan Burton’s signature illusion, he climbs into a giant microwave, which proceeds to smoke. After 10 seconds, out pops a behind-the-scenes magician’s assistant significant for his darker skin color.
“The reason it works is because I’m the goofy white guy, and he comes out as the rock star,” Burton said. “He’s dancing and does a costume change. People love him.”
The trick was born as a drama project at Burton’s Arkansas high school. Burton drank a magic soda, fell behind a desk and was replaced by an African-American classmate.
“I think I got a B-minus on it,” Burton said.
It entered his magic act soon thereafter as a prop called the “tanning bed of death.”
“But I wanted to take it up a notch,” Burton said. “A microwave is funnier.”
TELLER OF PENN& TELLER
Rio
Trick: Shadows
Teller favors the first original illusion he conjured up, so much so that it has featured in virtually every show he and partner Penn Jillette have staged for the past 35 years.
A rose sits in a vase, like a still life, casting its shadow on a screen behind it. Teller approaches the shadow and slices it with a carving knife. The corresponding branches on the real rose tumble.
The concept occurred to Teller as a teenager in Philadelphia. While playing in his room with a set of Playskool blocks, he built a tower and noticed its shadow on the wall. On a whim, he touched that shadow and, at the same moment, flicked the blocks to the ground with his other hand.
“It gave me a big chill,” Teller said.
Over the next 10 years, Teller sketched into a notepad possible stage adaptations.
“It dawned on me that it might be cool to use a natural object,” he said, “because if the thing looked like an artificial object, you’d just say, ‘Oh, that’s a robot that’s rigged to fly into pieces when he touches the shadow.’ ”
To end the piece, Teller pricks a real finger with the knife. It doesn’t bleed, but its shadow does.
“I was kind of a nut for the old Alfred Hitchcock shows and ‘Twilight Zones,’ ” he said. They always had twist endings, where whatever you thought was happening got reversed in some surprising way.”
RICK THOMAS
Sahara
Trick: Double Levitation
For years, magicians used the same levitation trick. They’d float their assistant skyward, then back down. They’d put a cloth over her, whip it off and — poof! — no assistant.
Rick Thomas decided that wasn’t enough for him.
“If you’re a real magician, you don’t have her float back down to you,” he said. “You fly up to her and make her disappear in midair.”
Thomas conjured this seven-minute illusion six years ago, while he headlined the Tropicana. He says he was inspired by a scene in “The Royal Wedding” where Fred Astaire danced with a coat rack.
“At first I floated a microphone stand in the air and danced with it,” he said. “But I was like, ‘I made a microphone stand float, so why can’t I make a girl float?’ ”
According to Thomas, “absolutely no one” who sees his show expects it.
Oops. They will now.
Contact reporter Corey Levitan at clevitan@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0456.
