Reviews
Hocus focus: Copperfield's success no grand illusion
By Sally Cragin,
Globe Correspondent
Published: February 4, 2006
The premise of uber-magician David Copperfield's production, ''An Intimate
Evening of Grand Illusion," is imagining one's self in ''a perfect place."
Frankly, The Opera House was a pretty perfect place to be last night, especially
when a green Lincoln convertible magically appeared where thin air had been
moments earlier.
Copperfield is known for elaborate, concept-heavy stunts like having the Statue of Liberty ''disappear" for a live audience. But the intimacy promised in the title of his latest show is certainly evident, and not just because his costume is an unbuttoned blue shirt over a T-shirt. For nearly every spectacular vignette, he calls random members of the audience onstage to act as witnesses or apparatus inspectors.
And yes, these were clearly random folks. When he needs someone, he flings a Frisbee out into the 2,600-seat hall. Some who caught the disc last night appeared to have second thoughts about taking part, including one young woman who was reluctant to participate in hocus-pocus involving a writhing black African scorpion.
With roaming video technicians beaming close-ups onto large and small-screen televisions, it's nearly impossible to figure out how he manages to migrate from one side of a steel plate to another, or how he gets Webster the Duck from one box to another.
And it's not as if he relies on distractions to fool the audience. The stage is stripped bare, with a few scattered lights and stripped-down steel platforms.
But each illusion, no matter how lengthy the set-up, is entirely satisfying,
if bizarre. Among the more peculiar illusions is one involving a comely young
woman beckoned onstage to be immaculately impregnated. (Yes, we see the
ultrasound.)
One suspects the real magic of these feats for Copperfield is in thinking them up and figuring out how to make them happen. A biographical film sequence during the performance, prompted by Copperfield's achievement as a Guinness World Record holder, notes that each illusion takes about two years to complete. Copperfield remains down-to-earth, an affably cheeky host who concludes his own film homage by cracking, ''Eleven world records; 12 bad haircuts."
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
'Ordinary magic' enchants, mystifies
DAVID COPPERFIELD: Toned-down show an entertaining showcase for masterful magician.
By ANNE HERMAN
Daily News reviewer
Published: March 6th, 2005
He's been called the greatest artist of his kind in the world. He has walked through walls, flown through the air, and made huge public monuments disappear. David Copperfield -- magician, showman, artist -- definitely is one-of-a-kind.
This wizard of illusion brought his brand of theatrical entertainment to a jam-packed Atwood Concert Hall on Friday. "An Intimate Evening Of Grand Illusion" was a surprisingly toned-down exhibition of Copperfield's expertise. He worked on a nearly bare stage with steel construction-site sets. He also hid his magnificently male body under blue jeans and a T-shirt. In short, this was an ordinary guy on an ordinary stage entertaining ordinary people.
But here was Copperfield's real sorcery. This wasn't spectacular legerdemain, unreachable and alien. His "ordinary magic" showed us that our everyday fantasies can be as mysteriously enchanting as making the Statue of Liberty disappear. Copperfield involved the audience at every turn, something many magicians might not risk. After all, how do you control the illusion when your partners haven't a clue about what's going to happen?
His "Having My Baby" and "The Lottery" routines were prime examples of taking a chance on amateurs to make dreams come true. Randomly-picked people helped him choose winning lottery numbers and have a smart-aleck infant seen in an ultrasound exam reveal a woman's hidden playing card. Who hasn't wanted to win the lottery and watch our lives change? And probably more than a few women in the audience would have enjoyed a sexy night with Copperfield, baby or no baby.
A more theatrical bit of alchemy, "Reunion" joined a woman from the audience with her long-lost father in the Philippines. A video camera set up on a sun-drenched beach waited with several Copperfield assistants. He and the woman climbed into a box suspended over the audience. The curtains dropped and both had disappeared, only to show up on that beach. Father and daughter were tearfully reunited as Copperfield reappeared in the Atwood theater. The evening had a few abra-cadabra chestnuts. In "Killer" two rather nervous women and one large, lethal African scorpion pulled off the old "is this your playing card" trick. And some vaudevillian routines with Webster the duck culminated in the fowl getting yanked from a bucket.
The 90-minute show ended with "Thirteen," an audacious illusion. Thirteen people sat on chairs in a shroud-covered cage hovering over the stage. Copperfield whipped off the silky cloth and all 13 had disappeared. Seconds later the house lights went up and they all were waving from the back of the theater!
David Copperfield's "An Intimate Evening Of Grand Illusion" wasn't the supercharged, Las Vegas spectacle some might have expected from this conjurer extraordinaire. But it was perhaps better because sometimes the real magic lies in the dreams that do come true for ordinary people everyday.
-- Anne Herman
Anne Herman holds a master's degree in dance and has been a
consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts.