I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO MAD AT MAGIC BEFORE

That's right. Last night we saw: "DAVID COPPERFIELD: AN INTIMATE EVENING OF GRAND ILLUSION".

As I was sitting there, I felt horrible for thinking: “Is it just me, or are other people sensing that Mr. Copperfield is rushing through this as fast as possible?” I tried to let it go, but then as the show went on….more thoughts: “Wow, his plants are horrible actors”, “Saw that coming a mile away, thanks to his plants”, “He needs to not tell jokes” and then the unexpected: “He looks like Tony Shalhoub from here. But probably just from here”.

Oh, I wanted to believe! Oh I did. I was practically skipping to my seat (and we had pretty great seats) but the whole thing reeked of a ‘Tuesday night show’ where the audience was full of no friends or family or Claudia Schiffer-types to push Mr. Copperfield to do his best. The finale was just kind of an insult. It really was. I'm getting mad just thinking about it.

There is a Portland close-up magician named Reed McClintock who has blown my mind time and time again. He's one of the most amazing magicians I’ve ever seen and I wouldn't be suprised if he took up permanent residence at The Magic Castle. I just expected more from David Copperfield; a crisp white unbuttoned shirt. A bit of fanfare. A bit of majesty – but seriously! Tony Shalhoub. Wearing KHAKIS. He did two illusions that were simple straight-up now you see me, now you don’t very, very cool tricks, but as soon as he added his horrible actor plants and tried to perform poor comedy along with it – I checked out. No. I disappeared.

My feelings were validated when the lights came up and the guys we went to the show with (Mitch and Derek – both huge D.C. fans who have seen him five times) said the show wasn’t that great and noticed that two illusions were missing. Even the way Mr. Copperfield left the stage was the lamest stage exit I have ever seen in the history of stage exits. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He ran off like a hasty high school principal at the end of an assembly trying to beat the school bullies out to the parking lot before they have a chance to key his Benz.

Now that I am a complete asshole, I also have to add that he opened the show with a ten minute reel of clips gathered from over the years of anytime the name ‘David Copperfield’ was uttered in any movie, sit-com or cartoon. There we were watching a too-long-for-it-to-be-okay clip from ‘Mad About You’ at an arena where The fucking Who played. In the middle of the show, they practically ran the same thing: a ten minute bloated egoist resume of all the accomplishments of David Copperfield – I'm almost positive it's one of those shiny videos they run on the Vegas strip on a gigantic screen every 15 minutes squashed in-between Cirque Du Soleil and Rita Rudner. On your way to your seat in the lobby? Fine. But during the show? In the words of Master Magician (and my boyfriend) Gob Bluth: “Come on!”

Now this shouldn’t put you off of ever seeing him (he's David Copperfield after all) but I felt like he was peeing in my mouth the whole time. And there's nothing really that magical about that.

J.