Monday, March 16, 1998
Magicomedy
Penn and Teller’s sly humor wows audiences as much as their
sleight-of-hand magic tricks
By Kristi Nakamura
Daily Bruin Contributor
The phone rings at 10:30 a.m. A masculine voice introduces
himself and casually remarks, "I just got out of the swimming pool
and now I’m sitting here naked and dripping – great way to do an
interview."
Half an hour later, the phone rings again and another masculine
voice mimics a pretend dialogue, "’I’ve always dreamed of flying.’
‘Well good, so have we, now shut up!’ ‘And if I could fly, this is
what it would look like.’ ‘No it wouldn’t, now shut up!’"
No, this is not a bonus from the obscene, schizophrenic
phone-callers-of-the-month club. It’s just a taste of the quirky,
honest and sarcasm-laden humor of the renowned duo, Penn and
Teller.
Appearing in Los Angeles for the first time in over seven years,
Penn and Teller will play a two-week engagement at the Wilshire
Theater. The show runs March 25 through April 5, with one
lower-priced preview performance on March 24.
Although Teller is the silent partner on stage, when he does
decide to speak he certainly makes just as powerful an impact as
Penn. After all, its not every day that a star confesses to being
naked and wet on the other end of the phone line. Then again, there
isn’t much Penn and Teller do that is normal.
When performing, Teller prefers the challenge of lying without
speaking and still making the audience jump to the conclusions he
wants them to jump to. Penn becomes the sole voice for the duo,
lacing the show with his unique brand of insight and cynicism.
"On my own, I don’t think I ever would have thought to do the
kind of talk Penn does, which is, in its way, wildly political,
although it isn’t politically topical. He doesn’t make White House
sexual harassment jokes," says Teller. "It’s more broadly political
than that. It’s a sort of witty, sharp, surprising, it’s not even
really commentary. It’s a very sort of elusive thing to describe,
its these sort of explosions that make you think."
Between Penn’s politics, Teller’s silent lies and the bunny
rabbits jumping into chipper shredders, the needle-swallowing,
barehanded broken bottle juggling and 1404 pounds of playing cards
being manipulated with forklifts to perform the world’s heaviest
card trick don’t seem excessively out of the ordinary.
"Unreassuring is certainly characteristic of our style. I mean,
the last TV special we did, we left me dead in the water tank and
ended the show," Teller says.
In a similar fashion, Penn and Teller never bring the bunny
rabbit back alive after it jumps into the chipper shredder. The
audience just has to have faith they didn’t actually kill it.
"We just sort of shrug and go ‘oh, too bad’ and then we move on
with the show without ever commenting," Teller says.
There really isn’t any clear-cut way to define and classify what
it is that Penn and Teller actually do. The Obie award they
received while they were on Broadway was addressed "To Penn and
Teller, for whatever it’s called that they do."
"All I know is it’s Penn-and-Teller type stuff," Teller says.
"It tends to be stuff that makes you laugh and the little hairs
stand up on the back of your neck at the same time."
The duo is adamant, however, about the distinction between the
performances they give and other magic shows.
"Whereas other magicians are still following this ‘I’ll be a
greasy guy in a tux with a lot of birds torturing women in front of
a mylar curtain while playing a bad rip-off of old McWhiteboy
motown music,’ which seems to be a valid art form for some, others
like us have decided to actually look into the truth," Penn
says.
Presenting the thumbnail definition of magicians as actors
playing the part of a magician, Penn says that he and Teller prefer
to be thought of as swindlers who play swindlers.
The duo admits that 75 to 80 percent of what the audience sees
in their show is trickery. They are not out to determinedly conceal
the secrets of their magical mysteries.
"The secrets of magic are not kept secret because of some cabal
that we all belong to by sacrificing young babies and dancing
around bonfires naked. Although we do both of those things, its not
an important part of keeping the secret," Penn says. "The secret is
kept the same reason the secret to how to grind your pistons in
your Volvo is kept secret – you don’t care! You want somebody else
to do it, find some guy to do it, isn’t there a guy who does
this?"
Rather than creating elaborate illusions, Penn and Teller are
more interested in separating the truth from the nonsense, and who
better to address that issue artistically than people whose lives
have been spent learning to do deception.
Take Mofo, the psychic gorilla, for example. No illusions here.
Teller confesses, "It’s probably the cheesiest carnie trick you’ll
ever see. That’s Mofo, Mo-fo, cause you know that’s ghetto slang
for mother fucker."
Apparently Mofo had an unfortunate accident in the wild 10 years
ago and Harvard’s medical team picked him up. They chopped off his
head, preserved it, gave him the power of speech and now he reads
minds for Penn and Teller. Or so the story goes.
In the wake of all these previous theatrical tricks, it only
seems appropriate that Penn and Teller conclude their performance
with something as flashy as The Bullet Catch, a trick that has
claimed the lives of 12 magicians, shot dead on stage.
"We get two audience members up – and incidentally, we’re not
one of those high-budget shows that bring along their own audience
members. We just grab people out of the audience, but we ask for
anyone who’s conversant with weapons, with specifically handguns,"
says Teller.
Those audience members are asked to choose a bullet each, mark
them, then examine and load the .357 magnum guns. With the audience
members safely back in the audience, Penn and Teller walk to
opposite ends of the stage, like an old fashioned duel.
Aiming the guns at each other’s faces through panes of glass,
Penn and Teller shoot at each other through the glass and catch the
marked bullets in their teeth.
"People get very nervous during that trick. My mother doesn’t
like that trick at all," Teller says. "It’s kind of a magic trick,
but it’s also kind of a daredevil stunt and also, frankly, given
the current public unease about handguns, it ends up being a very
interesting political exploration too."
THEATER: Penn and Teller will perform at the Wilshire Theater,
8440 Wilshire Blvd in Beverly Hills from March 25-April 5. There
will also be a preview performance on March 24. Tickets for the
preview performance are available for $30 and $35. Tickets for the
regular performances range from $32-$42. Call (213) 365-3500.
Penn and Teller come to Wilshire Theater for two weeks starting
March 25.