Review: PIFF THE MAGIC DRAGON'S VEGAS ALL-STARS TOUR at Southern Theatre

In Las Vegas, fortunes are made and lost by taking chances. When John van der Put brought his VEGAS ALL-STARS tour featuring his Piff the Magic Dragon character to the Southern Theatre (21 E. Main Street in downtown Columbus) on Sept. 10, he was taking his suitcase of poker chips (literally) and pushing it to the center of the table.

Sometimes the show hit the jackpot, sometimes it broke even, and sometimes, well, it busted.

In his interview with BroadwayWorld/Columbus, the AMERICA’S GOT TALENT semifinalist promised something “completely different” from his residency shows at the Flamingo Casino. He delivered on that promise. The show was a wild departure from his Vegas schtick, adding in new characters, new tricks, even a new dog. (Mr. Piffles, the wide-eyed chihuahua, died in Nov. 2024, and was replaced by Mr. Piffles The Second. “Fortunately, we got Mr. Piffles cloned. He is 100% genetically identical,” van der Put said.)

The problem was I really liked his solo Vegas show.

 Piff’s dry humor, magic tricks and interactions with the audience, Mr. Piffles The Second and his wife and co-star Jade are still laugh-out-loud funny in the VEGAS ALL-STARS tour. I just wish there were more of them. Adding comedian/magician Paul Dabek, crooner Brett Alters, lasso/hula hoop queen Tanya Gagne and comedian Chad Damiani made the stage a little too crowded and gave it the feel of a talent show at the summer camp for the gifted children.

Piff was captivating when he was on stage, often incorporating members of the audience into his show. He took the stage wearing a oversized playing card on his forehead and had a member of the audience whittle away portions of a freshly opened deck of cards. Holding a hand of cards in his right and left hand, Piff would give the audience a choice: “hamburger” (his right hand) or “fries” (the cards in his left). Whatever one they chose, he threw the offending hand’s cards on the Southern Theatre stage and then grab another stack of cards. He whittled the 52 cards down until there were six remaining and had a participant choose one of the cards, the six of hearts. He then flipped over the playing card on his visor to reveal it was the six of hearts.

Midway through the first act, he returned, looked down on the stage, and joked, “Man, someone left a mess here.” He then pulled a female from the audience and asked for a piece of her costume jewelry. (“Where did you get this ring?” “Target,” she sheepishly replied. “Peeerfeect,” he replied.) The plan was to have Mr. Piffles II “eat” the ring but the chihuahua refused to cooperate, turning his nose up at a spoon, even after it was coated with pastrami. “Great, now I have to eat it,” Piff groaned. After pretending to poop into the doggie bag, he reached into the bag, pulled out an egg and cracked it open. Presto, there was the ring, covered in yolk.

Even when things didn’t go the way he planned, Piff was able to pull out humor like a rabbit out of a hat. When his special guest, “David Copperfish,” a mechanical fish, malfunctioned, he beat the fish on the side of the bowl and it came back to life.

While it was all very amusing, van der Put seemed to put aside his nonchalant, devil-may-care attitude Piff used to capture the AMERICA’S GOT TALENT audience. During the Sept. 10 show, he was simply the star, and not the impish jokester who ate a submarine sandwich while judge Simon Cowell and company contemplated his fate on AGT.

The supporting cast was a mixed bag. Dabek, the co-star of the traveling magic show THE ILLUSIONIST, was over-the-top as his “manager of the Flamingo” persona that dressed like a mobster henchmen and acted like he was part car salesman and part sleazy game show host. Donning dark shades and a pin-striped suit jacket, he charmed the audience with an arsenal of one liners and his one-person shadow puppetry of “The Circle of Life” from THE LION KING was one of the show’s non-Piff related highlights. His Bronx accent fooled much of the audience to the point where they couldn’t figure out whether he was American or British. “I am really British,” he said with an English inflection and then added in his Bronx intonation, “Or am I?”

Alters, who warmed up for P!nk and was part of one of the Cirque du Solei troupes, Gagne, who appeared as “Goldie Hen” during AMERICA’S GOT TALENT’s 20th season, and Damiani, who appeared on AGT during its 15th season, earned mixed reviews for their parts in the show.

Before the show, a friend of mine warned me about the dangers of seeing a magician a second time because “their magic won’t fool you again.” She was partly correct. It wasn’t the magic that disappointed me on Sept. 10; it was missing what made it magical in the first place.