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Not so way back, touchdown a helicopter on a Broadway stage was sort of a giant deal. In “El Mago Pop,” the charming, thrilling, foolish Broadway present by the Spanish illusionist Antonio Díaz, it is among the extra minor stunts. The stage is empty. Then it’s ornamented by a purple and silver copter. Then it’s empty once more, aside from lights and sparks.
Díaz grew up on the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. Like {most professional} magicians, he found magic early and labored at it obsessively, a course of he particulars in an extended video sequence that begins the transient present. (Excluding the video and a padded curtain name, the dwell motion runs maybe an hour.) At 37, he claims to be the youngest illusionist to current a present on Broadway, however as with lots of his results, that’s a tough factor to confirm. Doug Henning appears to have been the identical age.
Díaz bops onto the stage of the Ethel Barrymore Theater in a white shirt, skinny black pants and a skinnier black tie, the outfit of an excitable Sixties mod. He’s quick and slight, with lengthy, nimble fingers — watch these fingers when you may, the precision and financial system are attractive — and a excessive, quick voice. In distinction with the heavy eyeliner and gothic fripperies of magic’s 2000s efflorescence, he appears indefatigably good and bountifully cheerful as he bounces up and down in his sneakers, which appear to have helium lifts. He’s a prestidigitator you could possibly take dwelling to mom.
As if to underline that sweetness, every ticketholder receives a sweet jar upon getting into. The jars function in a reasonably modest mathematics-focused magic trick. Nonetheless the gesture is good. This boy-next-door persona typically feels at odds with the director Magazine Lari’s extravagant staging, a symphony of blinding lights and so very many open flames. A day later I’m nonetheless selecting confetti out of my garments. However possibly that’s what occurs when the boy subsequent door involves Broadway. And but his expertise are by no means unsure.
“I intend so that you can see not possible issues tonight,” Díaz says. Pretty typically, he delivers.
There’s a latest pattern in magic, popularized by performers like Derek DelGaudio and Helder Guimarães, to weave tips into some bigger narrative, typically a private historical past. Díaz gestures towards that, however he doesn’t truly share a lot of himself. The video suggests the story of a boy who desires of attaining the unbelievable. And Díaz tells the viewers that this transient stint on Broadway culminates these desires, which nods to an emotional undercurrent. However there’s little narrative right here, simply the sense of a canny and dexterous performer checking off one other field on a “Turn into an Worldwide Sensation” to-do checklist.
Díaz’s rise, like his stage maneuvers, is offered as unfailingly easy, with doubt, quirk and adversity scrubbed away. Rather than narrative, there are cartoon video interludes — Díaz as a superhero, Díaz as an outdated man — and a relentlessly primary playlist Díaz depends on: “Energy of Love,” “Shut Up and Dance,” the “Star Wars” theme, a number of Coldplay numbers. (Díaz and Jesús Díaz are credited with the music choice; they aren’t associated.) There may be additionally, absurdly, an prolonged clip from “Forrest Gump.”
“El Mago Pop” alternates between large-scale illusions and smaller ones, carried out within the aisles of the orchestra and shot by roaming cameramen. Which means that in case you are seated at the back of the theater or within the higher tiers, you will notice the present principally onscreen, which has a approach of diminishing awe. Most of us have been spoiled by too many particular results, enhancing tips and filters to belief the proof of screens. For me, the close-up stunts carried out within the reverse aisle felt far much less astonishing than one which occurred only a few ft away, through which a volunteer’s ring shot by way of the air and landed, rattling, inside a lined shot glass.
Levitation is one in all Díaz’s specialties. Teleportation is one other. The teleportation tips are most likely his finest. When assistants or ostensible viewers members seem, in a blink, in a vitrine on the alternative aspect of the stage, it produces a giddy feeling of marvel.
His viewers interplay is much less sure. For one trick, he chosen a really younger youngster, who regarded uncomfortable, even terrified, to be introduced onstage. The kid didn’t converse, however when Díaz requested, “Do you want magic?” a vigorous shake of the pinnacle was given: No. That obtained amusing, so Díaz repeated the query. The kid squirmed. Was this value it for a routine with a wristwatch?
Díaz’s finest routine was carried out alone to a peppy Jacques Brel music. Breathlessly, Díaz manipulated a ball (a tribute to Cardini’s traditional billiard ball routine), many playing cards, even his personal proper shoe. His palms can be empty. His mouth can be empty. You’d swear to it on any out there Bible. Then they might be full, playing cards raining to the ground. He despatched a couple of playing cards whizzing by way of the air in a approach that jogged my memory of Ricky Jay, the scholar and magician, who died in 2018. I’ll have teared up a bit of. This was Díaz’s easiest sequence and in addition his most stunning. Who wants a helicopter when you may make magic like that?
El Mago Pop
By Aug. 27 on the Barrymore Theater, Manhattan; elmagopop.com. Operating time: 1 hour half-hour.
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