After 40 Years, ‘It’s Magic!’ Still Magical

Seven short magic acts instead of one or two long ones. Plenty of variety. Tickets under $20, with no minimum drink charge. The talent-picking skills of Magic Castle impresario Milt Larsen.

These are among the attractions of Larsen’s annual “It’s Magic!” revue, this year celebrating its 40th anniversary. Over the decades, it has helped turn Los Angeles into a magic mecca. And it’s still going strong.

This year’s edition, at the Alex Theatre, begins with the retro Mr. Electric and his ever-smiling assistant Carol. Mr. Electric pulls glowing lightbulbs out of strange places.

Emcee Mac King is up next, looking like a dressed-up hayseed, but displaying an impish wit that belies his look. He pulls cards out of strange places.

The rest of the evening has a more unorthodox, new-fashioned look, beginning with Juliana Chen of China. She is costumed like someone out of Cirque du Soleil and changes masks in a matter of milliseconds. She also has the knack of converting playing cards into instant confetti.

Ed Alonzo ends the first act with a series of big illusions, some of them based on familiar fairy tales. His act is wild, crazy, sexy and kid-friendly--all at the same time. Something was wrong with his opening video Thursday, but he more than made up for it with remarkable transformations and escapes and adventurous forays into the audience.

After intermission, Jason Byrne--wearing a ponytail on top and blue tails below--turns yellow objects into live birds, culminating in a big, yellow duck.

Ventriloquist Brad Cummings has fun with his rude dinosaur friend but even more fun with an audience member, who was perched on Cummings’ lap and told to open and close his mouth while Cummings provided the dialogue.

Princess Tenko, a glitzy Japanese star who performs with a chorus line of six young men, is ostensibly the grand finale. The men plunge swords into the tiny box into which she apparently squeezes herself, and then she becomes a sort of human sword herself, piercing a contraption in which two of the men are strapped. The power of her act is undermined, though, by a video plug for her animated series and a video account of a driving stunt she survived. If people wanted to watch TV, they wouldn’t have paid money to go to a theater.

* “It’s Magic!,” Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. Today, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 6:30 p.m. Ends Sunday. $15.50-$18.50. (800) 233-3123. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.