STAGE REVIEW : TRICKS, TREATS OF DAVID COPPERFIELD

David Copperfield, who fancies himself the high-tech heir of Houdini, has a thing for curtains.

When the Pantages Theatre curtain rose last Friday on his show, “The Magic of David Copperfield,” it revealed another curtain. On it was printed, like an architect’s blueprint, Copperfield’s various exploits. “The Vanishing Airplane.” “The Floating Ferrari.” “The Escape From Alcatraz.” “Walking Through the Great Wall of China.”

At the bottom of the blueprint were the words, “Scale: Bigger Than Big.”

We got the point.

The Pantages can barely contain this guy. His sets are bigger. His smoke and light effects are bigger. The falling panel of steel spikes which he barely eludes--they’re bigger, too.

Talk about big. Those curtains he’s so fond of? Boy, are they big .

Bigger than big?

Well, bigger than Doug Henning.

You wonder what happens behind those curtains. The move where he vanishes into a huge steel monolith right out of “2001” had you really wondering. There he is, at the top of a portable staircase positioned in front of the monolith.

Whoosh! There goes those curtains again, hiding Copperfield on all sides, with only a light bulb to illuminate his way. There’s his shadow (is that his shadow?) as he steps into the monolith. And into some hideaway crevace, no doubt.

You can’t see the trick, but you spend the whole time figuring out various ways he can pull it off.

Take the falling steel spikes. Again, a curtain conceals Copperfield, who’s tied up with chains. But the platform he’s lying on would dwarf Noah’s Ark. Anyone who can’t wiggle out of this predicament with a few trick devices is in trouble.

Ah, but this is the magic of David Copperfield. Like Henning’s, his business is all “wonder” and “cosmic events.” During his introduction to the monolith routine, he equates himself with high priests of the East, whose remains were found inside thick walls. If they willed themselves there, so can he.

With will, and a lot of visible cables.

For the kids, to be sure, this is dazzling stuff. Despite a habit of hammily grinning to the crowd on the crest of a bad joke (a stand-up he’s not), he doesn’t have Henning’s cheesy attack of the cutes. He was very good in giving Winston, a shy little boy brought up during a number with “Webster the Death-Defying Duck,” a piece of the limelight. At moments like this, you almost want to take Copperfield home with you.

At other moments, you want to lock the bedroom door. If this show is for kids, it’s also apparently for leering men who love women in tight leather. The night begins like a prelude for Grace Jones: two bikini-clad assistants suggestively gyrate up and down the poles of a cage that soon will contain Copperfield. At other points, these assistants appear in ultra-V-necked dresses and ultra-ultra miniskirts.

It’s clear where this magician’s sexual (and other) politics lie. When it’s time for an audience member to do a pre-trick inspection, only men are picked. The program (also big) contains a huge shot of Copperfield with Ron and Nancy. The program also reports that when he wanted to get government permission for his biggest trick of all--the disappearance of the Statue of Liberty--he “enlisted the support of a friend, a powerful member of the California Republican Party, to help sway” it. Call it Gipper Magic.

Like Star Wars, Copperfield’s show is an exercise in size and grandeur that’s deeply dependent on technology to get it off the ground. When he does low-tech tricks, they involve either doing things to Webster the Duck that must not be very comfortable to the creature, or very obvious palming and pre-arranged bits.

Still, when Copperfield escapes from a straitjacket, it’s the real thing. He does it in full view, with nary a curtain in sight. That’s magic.

Performances at 6233 Hollywood Blvd., runs tonight through Thursday at 8 p.m.; Friday at 6 and 9:15 p.m.; Saturday at 1, 5 and 9 p.m.; Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Ends Sunday. Tickets: $16.50-24.50 ($3 children’s discount for all performances except Friday at 9:15 p.m. and Saturday at 9 p.m.), (213) 410-1062 or (714) 634-1300.