STAGE REVIEW : Persona Detracts From Copperfield Magic

Advice to David Copperfield: Lower the volume on the strutting stud persona and prune the corn from all the stand-up patter. Focus on the hocus-pocus. And finally, leave that poor duck alone!

Yeah, give Webster a break.

There were plenty of ironies in Copperfield’s magic show at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Friday, but one of the most obvious was his repeated use (abuse) of a game little fowl named Webster.

Despite Copperfield’s penchant for big, bigger, biggest--this was the guy, remember, who made the Statue of Liberty “disappear”--he decided to give much of the spotlight to a bird.

Webster was shoved into a box, poked along a walkway, head-butted up against a wall and forced to perform silly disco moves with his “girlfriend,” a worried-looking chicken. All in all, both were given a pretty rough ride that left too many feathers flying.

Part of what makes Copperfield’s act less entrancing than it could be is his confusion over what he’s trying to project as a performer. He refuses to be a straight magician and simply move from one routine to another. Instead he chooses to impress with his personality. At first he’s the likable, somewhat nerdy guy most mothers would call harmless. But whoa!--the next minute he’s a sly gigolo on the make, winking at the girls in mini-skirts when mom isn’t looking.

To be sure, there’s a lot of self-parody in this. Copperfield knows he’s good-looking and knows this is just a performance. But he drags this stuff on for too long: you want him to get on with the business of mystery, of magic.

When he does get down to it, the results can be spectacular--many of his illusions do have you wondering how he did it.

Three segments were especially captivating, doing what magic is suppose to do: suspend reality. In the first, he created an environment that toyed with our notions of space by placing a lovely assistant in a box that continually shrank as its sides were folded.

Another had Copperfield “desperately” trying to free himself from a straight-jacket while a buzz saw descended. He was too slow, of course, and appeared to be cut in half. The grand finale had him vanish and reappear 30 rows into the audience.

On the down side, Copperfield has succumbed to the baubles of high tech, which really isn’t surprising for a performer who is probably more comfortable in a television studio than on a theater stage. At the Center, almost every big trick was accompanied by garish lighting, wafting fog, gaudy sets and thumping music.

Sensational, but also counterproductive. There were too many moments when the illusion was swallowed by all the surrounding hubbub, making the trick’s “challenge” unclear and the resolution anticlimactic.

Another crab: In a blatant attempt to pad his 80-minute show, Copperfield played a 5- to 10- minute segment from his Statue of Liberty TV special. The tape, complete with interviews of “observers” oohing that they never thought he could pull it off, was wearingly self-congratulatory.

But then, most of the Center show was self-congratulatory. After the fancy bits, Copperfield would grab a pose and wait for the cheers to drape over him.

The applause did come, in large chunks. But it was probably as much for Webster as for his boss.