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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

spuri@media.ucla.edu

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.