Review Roundup: PENN AND TELLER ON BROADWAY Begins Limited Run

PENN AND TELLER ON BROADWAY began its six-week run at the Marquis Theatre Sunday night. Thirty years after their New York premiere and 40 years after they first started as a team, the evening is a rare opportunity for New Yorkers and tourists to see the popular duo before they soon return to their record-breaking Las Vegas run at The Rio. The Broadway engagement includes both elements of their Las Vegas show and classics from their repertoire.

Penn & Teller made their stunning off-Broadway debut in 1985 and first played Broadway in 1987. Following a national tour, they returned to Broadway in 1991 with The Refrigerator Tour which then moved off-Broadway. Their last New York stage appearance was a week-long engagement at the Beacon Theatre in 2000. Their numerous honors include an Obie Award, an Emmy, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Let's see what the critics had to say:

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: Though it's been four decades since they first teamed up, Penn and Teller are looking terribly of-the-moment these days. Never mind that their latest entertaining exercise in populist hocus-pocus includes some of the oldest tricks in any conjurer's book... These are the magicians, after all, who for years have been telling us not to believe in the magic they do. How appropriate that credo feels in the early 21st century, when everybody seems to be in on the joke that everybody else is a fake.

Michael Dale, BroadwayWorld: There's a great deal of audience participation, with many patrons brought up on stage. Penn playfully jibes at some of them a bit, but it's never mean-spirited. Under John Rando's direction, the evening glides smoothly from bit to bit.

David Cote, Time Out: The tension between knowing you're being fooled and not knowing exactly how is the secret to their success. Penn and Teller go the extra mile that David Blaine and Criss Angel (the latter gently mocked in the show) never do: They ask what it all means...I go to magic shows for cheap thrills, not to dwell on the mechanics of belief or free will, but Penn and Teller-philosophers as much as con men-deftly make that switcheroo.

Marilyn Stasio, Variety: Working in close partnership, Penn and Teller are uncommonly civil to their audiences, inviting people onstage before the show to learn some of the tricks of their offbeat trade and spending considerable time in the lobby after the show, talking and posing for selfies. Maybe they're tougher on the Vegas gambling crowd, but audience participation is warmly encouraged for this legit gig.

Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter: Marking their first NYC engagement in 15 years, the duo, who have become Las Vegas fixtures in their eponymously named theater, deliver an entertaining, fast-paced show featuring a combination of classic and new illusions. Having performed together for four decades, they have evolved from iconoclastic magicians into an institution, with scads of film and TV appearances and bestselling books among their credits.

Joe Dziemianowicz, The Daily News: Save for pianist Mike Jones and showgirl Georgie Bernasek, it's the magicians and a bare stage. There's no overarching theme to give the show shape in the big theater, just a greatest hits reel unspooling. So there's no momentum or build. Director John Rando ("On the Town") doesn't have much to pull out of his hat here. Worse still, is a careless snafu that wrecked the show's opening illusion - then distracted the audience for the remaining 90 minutes Thursday night.

Jesse Green, Vulture: Penn & Teller are still, in the best sense, up to their old tricks. In fact, their Broadway playlist consists mostly of highlights from previous shows. Some, the more "poetic" illusions, are naturally Teller's specialties, performed solo (or with an audience volunteer) and in silence. In "Shadows," he cuts at the projected silhouette of a rose with scissors, but the leaves of the real rose fall off.

Mark Kennedy, AP: Directed by John Rando, Penn & Teller's tricks here celebrate the sideshow of yore, the slight-of-hand gags of practiced pros, not the empty-calorie flash of the likes of Criss Angel. Penn says he wants the audience to wonder not how they do their tricks, but why.

Linda Winer, Newsday: This is the comedy-magic-philosophy duo's third Broadway show, but the first since 1991, and the 95-minute summer treat has opened just three weeks shy of their 40th professional anniversary when they were Off-Broadway pioneers of what used to be called "new vaudeville."And they are still the same. And still mavericks. And still -- even for a person not naturally hard-wired to figure out puzzles and tricks -- amazing.

Matt Windman, amNY: Unpretentious and skeptical, Penn and Teller do not profess to be any more than old-fashioned entertainers, and they make a point of bashing psychics and mediums. Their libertarian ideology even makes its way in, as when attempt to get a metal copy of the Bill of Rights through a replica of an airline metal detector. In one great bit, Penn breaks down the essential secrets of magic based on Teller's body movement. Even so, you are still likely to have no clue how most of the stunts are pulled off, like when Teller correctly guesses what dirty joke a young boy randomly picked out of a book.

Robert Feldberg, Bergen Record: My favorite moment, though, was the follow-up to a routine in which Teller, a superb sleight-of-hand artist, does rapid, now-you-see-it, now-you-don't tricks with cigarettes and a small red ball. He then repeats the routine more slowly, this time showing us the preparation and execution that results in magic. Rather than de-mystify the trick, the replay makes it more awesome: a behind-the-scenes revelation of a performer's remarkable dexterity and grace.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, NY Post: Dressed in natty pinstripe suits, the duo are welcoming hosts to the many audience members who end up onstage. Penn is friendly with an edge, as if always just barely refraining from poking fun at the volunteer help. His love for the traveling carnies and freaks of yore is endearing, as is his interest in the history and even ethics of magic. Penn rails against con artists claiming to be mentalists, for instance - not a surprise from a guy who used to co-host a TV show called "Bulls - - t!"

Steven Suskin, Huffington Post: In a nicely familial touch, the boys return under the management of their original producers, the Frankel-Viertel-Baruch-Routh group, who were a scrappy bunch of off-Broadway guys at the time. In a pointed example of corporate nepotism, Penn manages to plug his producers' nightclub, 54 Below; he does this by use of a (real) dead fish, but even so.

Robert Kahn, NBC New York: I'm a Penn and Teller newbie, but it was obvious even before curtain that the pair's charm is in their accessibility. Ticket holders were invited on stage to add signatures to an envelope that would later factor into another audience participation bit, or to sit inside a wooden box, the same one from which Teller will make his first entrance. Their soft sales pitch establishes trust, and once trust is built, it's that much easier to pull the wool over our eyes-which the illusionists do, often, with relish and gusto. Keep your friends close, and your audiences closer?

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: 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?

Photo credit: Joan Marcus

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