Copperfield Spices Illusions With Sexy Fun

When you observe the massive trucks parked outside the Pasadena Civic Auditorium with David Copperfield’s face emblazoned on them, you begin to get some sense of the sheer scale of the show you are about to see.

And indeed, David Copperfield’s “Unknown Dimension,” which just closed at the Civic and now travels to Costa Mesa, is a high-tech extravaganza, featuring pyrotechnical lighting, complicated props and the kind of over-the-top, cutting-edge illusions that have become associated with Copperfield’s magical extravaganzas.

To pull off a production this huge, you’ve got to have an out-sized talent, otherwise you might be dwarfed by your own technology. But Copperfield’s effectively low-key style plays in perfect counterpoint to his large-scale effects. In fact, those who have never seen Copperfield perform live before (and he is seldom photographed smiling) will be startled by just how funny he is, firing off-the-cuff retorts at the audience with the same finesse that he brings to his magic.

Call it sleight-of-tongue. By now, Copperfield--a veteran practitioner who made the Statue of Liberty disappear in arguably his most famous stunt--has got things down to a science, and he calibrates the complicated elements of his show with deceptive ease.

Whether you’re a magic buff or not, you’ve got to admire the stagecraft behind his latest outing, which ranges from a mind-boggling set-piece illusion that requires a satellite feed, to simple close-up magic, projected onto an onstage screen via live video.

The action starts with a whiz-bang and never lets up. Early on in the evening, two beautiful attendants wheel a big metallic gizmo onstage--a “laser” that, amid swirling lights and driving music, neatly “bisects” Copperfield. Amusing and ever-so-slightly creepy, the illusion leaves us laughing and befuddled, wondering just how he did it.

In one hilarious segment, Copperfield questions people in the audience about the color of underwear they are wearing. He then selects two attractive women from the audience wearing different colored undergarments. (We get a peek, they get a wedgy.) Copperfield then, amazingly, switches the panties on the astonished volunteers, while the audience roars its appreciation.

It’s breezy, it’s sexy, it’s fun--but Copperfield raises the emotional stakes with his penultimate illusion, in which he magically transports himself and a volunteer to a beach in Bali. (That’s where the live satellite feed comes in.) And, in an astonishing finale, he simultaneously levitates 13 audience volunteers.

Even for David Copperfield, it’s a new high.

* David Copperfield’s “Unknown Dimension,” Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Today at 12, 3, 6 and 9 p.m. $30-$50. (714) 740-7878. Also Arlington Theatre, 1317 State St., Santa Barbara. Sunday at 6 and 9 p.m.; Monday at 7:30 p.m. $34.50-$42.50. (805) 963-4408.