Review: Not All Illusions Magical

“Magicians aren’t trying to fool people; they’re trying to give us a glimpse into something impossible.”

This statement by magician Kevin Spencer describes what the audience at Reynolds Performance Hall saw last night during the Spencers Theatre of Illusion – the impossible.

Part of UCA Public Appearances, magicians and spouses Kevin and Cindy Spencer put on a two-hour show that mystified the audience in the first act and fell faster than a dead dove in the second.

With Kevin as the lead magician and Cindy as his faithful assistant, he sliced and diced her right at the beginning of the show with the traditional cut-in-half-in-a-box trick. After a few bad jokes, he warned the audience that "the humor in this show is going to be really bad." That, too, was an illusion. His quick wit flowed naturally and enhanced the magic tricks.

He followed that act with another traditional trick - shredding a newspaper and making it reappear in one piece. He customized the act with a copy of the Log Cabin Democrat, even reading some of the ads to the audience. He shredded the paper, crumbled the pieces into his hand, then pulled an intact copy of the paper from the hand. The trick was a crowd favorite.

A highlight of the performance was a trick invented by Harry Houdini that creates the illusion of  the magician passing through a masonry wall. Houdini used bricks but Spencer had concrete blocks stacked on metal bars in the middle of a box on stage. The wall separated the box into two chambers with no visible access between the two sides. Spencer walked into one side of the box and emerged from the other side.

Spencer also did some mind-reading and other less extragant tricks, including sending a steel spike through an audience member.

Kevin and Cindy Spencer doing magic

Too bad it didn’t end with the first act.

After a 15-minute intermission, Spencer began the second act with a monologue about his love of magic. It sounded insincere, as if he had recited it a million times before.  He then began performing kid magic tricks and talking about his childhood. The tricks and stories seemed self-indulgent and boring compared to his other illusions.

The show ended with Spencer's fan trick. He created the illusion of passing through the whirling blades of a large fan. Because he was shielded from the audience by a black cloth during the trick, it was less impressive than the other illusions.

The Spencers Theatre of Illusion was, for the most part, a brilliant showcase of talent. The lighting, music and first act transported us into an alternate, magical reality. The second act kept us firmly in our seats at Reynolds.

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