Penn and Teller possess talent, but show is a few cards short of full deck

Courtesy of Nederlander Penn and Teller are
coming to the Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills for a one week
engagement.

By Siddarth Puri
Daily Bruin Reporter
[email protected]

Move over Sigfried and Roy, it’s time to make room for yet
another magic show failing comically – “Penn and
Teller.” A mélange of optical trickery, forced jokes,
sprinkled with a few witty remarks, the show entertained the
audience for short periods with its eye-catching antics. Overall,
the material, coupled with the long-winded explanations, confused
most audience members.

The show, detailing the magical entertainment performed by the
piercing Penn and the tacit Teller, ranged from expert knife
“throwing,” to straitjacket escapes, and of course
included the infamous and classic “shooting a bullet through
plated glass and catching it in your mouth” trick. This
maneuver could have shocked some audience members enough to make
them wet themselves.

Though the show capitalized on quick wit and the explanation of
magic tricks, much of it relied on Penn’s random rambling and
digressions. While Teller was the quiet one who conducted marvelous
hand puppet shows about mysterious unicorns and other creatures,
Penn spoke enough for both of them with fast-paced details of his
“divine talent” that everyone could have been better
off without knowing.

Teller’s trickery, though, made the show a little more
tolerable and entertaining. His pure power over the audience,
without speaking a word, not only demonstrated his talent as a
magician, but also his expertise as an entertainer. His key acts
included numerous illusions. In one performance, he reached into an
empty fish tank and pulled out pennies and goldfish ““
successfully dumbfounding the slow audience members. In yet another
dazzling feat, Teller performed his flower “trimming”
illusion where he cut the leaves on a plant’s shadow, but
mysteriously cut the actual plant leaves as well.

The dynamic duo uses conventional magic tricks, but adds a spin
on most of them with their explanations or with audience members
participating as victims or assistants.

One trick, specifically, was an utterly pathetic attempt at
“magical nationalism.” The pair folded an American flag
inside a copy of the Bill of Rights and “burned” the
flag. They really slipped it out and burned a piece of paper
““ but the flag appeared center stage hanging on a majestic
pole. The illusion was grand until Penn decided to discuss the
greatness of America ““ during a magic show. Completely out of
place, his patriotic speech revealed his pride in America, but in
the most bizarre place possible.

However, despite all its faults, Penn and Teller did offer
insight to the world of magicians. They revealed numerous secrets
of their art: such as how performers really get out of the wooden
boxes, straitjackets and all the answers to those annoying card
tricks. Overall, a learning experience, Penn and Teller taught
everyone in the audience how to dazzle people with knife-throwing
tricks and even juggling.

Combining a little humor with two middle-aged men who both need
to do something with their hair, sets the stage for this magical
duo that can entertain at some points, and annoy at others.
Definitely not for a young college crowd, P&T should perhaps
not stand for Penn and Teller, but rather for Part-Time. Penn and
Teller – don’t quit your day jobs.