Penn & Teller bring wonder to the stage
NEW YORK -- Penn Jillette and Teller (no first name, please) have frequently been referred to as illusionists. But what these multi-faceted artists more frequently do -- as authors, producers and in their performing act -- is quite the opposite of what that term suggests.
In the robustly entertaining, deliciously unsettling Penn & Teller on Broadway (***1/2 out of four), Jillette -- as usual, the vociferous foil to his mostly silent partner -- demystifies or debunks certain practices of and notions espoused by more conventional magicians. (ESP and mind-reading are savaged with particular vigor.)
What Jillette preaches instead -- literally, at points -- is the gospel of skepticism. A love of mystery is essential to appreciating magic, he will stress near the end, but be ye wary of blind faith. Trust what he says, he basically tells us, but not what he and Teller do, or appear to do.
It's an approach that has appealed to both the tourists who flock to see Penn & Teller in Las Vegas, where they've appeared at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino for more than 14 years, and the off-Broadway audiences who welcomed them 30 years ago. In this, the duo's third Broadway stint, which opened Sunday at the Marquis Theatre, the tricks range from old favorites to brand new bits; but we are urged time and again to be suspicious of whatever titillating spectacles unfold.
Often, Jillette does the questioning himself, and delivers the answers, to a point. After Georgie Bernasek, a leggy blonde who turns up periodically, is sawed in half, he explains how magicians through the ages have deceived audiences into fretting through this harmless act -- but then makes sure to end the scene on a humorously gory note.
Another old chestnut, pulling a rabbit out of a hat, is made fresh by Teller's droll grace and great gift for sleight of hand. Those assets are continually on display in feats that astonish using such flimsy props as needles and thread, among them a trick Teller performed in his own act when a teenage Jillette first spotted him more than 40 years ago.
Whatever smugness leaks through in Jillette's clever pontificating -- one bit, involving a metal detector, finds the well-known libertarian decrying violations of the Fourth Amendment -- is mitigated by the reverence he shows his partner. Fans, too, are treated with respect, even when he and Teller, and the rest of us, have fun at their expense. One of numerous audience participants selected throughout the show is hoodwinked into using a video camera, with mercilessly funny results.
In an especially lavish and hilarious sequence toward the end, Jillette presents an "African spotted pygmy elephant," a rare creature that is, in this case, not actually an elephant at all. Footage is shown of Teller caring for the mammal (not a human being either), who eventually disappears -- or seems to, in any case.
As Jillette asks rhetorically, what more could we want from a Broadway magic show?