By John Katsilometes
Whenever I lay my eyes on Pamela Anderson, I think "levitate."
Hans Klok has been hit by that same stroke of genius and is using Anderson in his new illusion show at Planet Hollywood's Theatre for the Performing Arts. This is the old Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts, as Planet Hollywood is the old Aladdin but stripped of its Arabian theme and largely refurbished throughout. Klok is from Holland and has long been a successful magician, or in this context "illusionist" for two decades. I caught his media preview Saturday night, and the best way to describe his production is that it is precisely the type of show so masterfully skewered by Penn & Teller.
The blond-maned (and it is a mane, long and flowing and effectively coifed with some sort of high-powered gel) illusionist wears tight sequined black costumes and relentlessly bounds across the stage from one spectacle to the next. Years ago, I quit trying to sort out just how Klok, or any other magician, executes his illusions. I'm part of the audience that does not bother trying to figure it out (but Klok says that half the audience does, in fact, try to figure it out). He made himself disappear quite a lot -- maybe a half-dozen times. He floated wine glasses and, in a tribute to the late Harry Blackstone Jr., a lightbulb, which he sent adrift over the first several rows of the audience. He used any number of boxes and stage sets, weaving his life story into an otherwise arbitrarily sequenced parade of illusions.
Oh, Sylvester Stallone was in the audience, looking quite muscular in snugly fitting black shirt. I should not forget to mention that.
Most of Klok's act was fairly mystifying, yet familiar. There isn't anything happening that will make anyone forget Criss Angel, whose show at the Luxor promises to advance the world of live illusions one it opens next year at the old Hairspray theater. But Klok does have the advantage of Anderson, who makes her appearance late in the show, wearing a cream-colored jacket over a matching top and shorts that creep up and -- voila! -- disappear. But her top-heavy appearance actually retards the production, as Klok always works in fast-forward. The two need to work on their chemistry, as one gets the feeling in watching them interact that they never met before Anderson was a late replacement for the angst-riddled Carmen Electra a couple of months ago. But there was one on-target exchange, when Klok told Anderson, "I am going to do something to you that no man has ever done," and she shot him a sideways glance and said, "Good luck."
Heh. Brings to mind an old piece of footage recorded on a houseboat at Lake Mead ...
Oddly, Klok's show is competing with Steve Wyrick's production in his eponymous theater in the Miracle Mile shops (formerly known as Desert Passage mall). After watching his nearly flawless production, loaded with impressive staging and a couple of LED screens at either side of the theater AND finishing with Klok and Anderson suspended high above the stage, Klok's best trick might be to make Wyrick -- voila! -- disappear.
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Saturday afternoon I sat for an interview with a British TV crew at Panorama Towers working on a documentary about how the Royal Family is perceived in the U.S. I said they were perceived fine in Vegas, where we have named our highest poker hand after them. At one point I was asked if the family was "loathed" in America. Loathed? I don't think so. It's hard to work up a good loathing over Queen Elizabeth (who is in the fifth decade of her monarchy and has outlasted just about every major resort in Las Vegas). Prince Charles seems to at least want to do the right thing, and the princes (who are always called "Wills and Harry" by the British) seem to be fun-loving English gentlemen. I remarked that Las Vegas would love to bring Wills and Harry to the Strip, where they should front their own production show -- maybe they are the Big Names who could salvage "The Producers" at Paris Las Vegas. Whatever, they would kill, and they would not need to bring in Pamela Anderson to sell tickets.
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Dino's Lounge on Las Vegas Boulevard North, across from the Olympic Garden, sells its own bottled water. At least, it sells water in plastic bottles with a Dino's label, which aptly reads, "Getting Vegas Drunk For 45 Years." That includes all weekdays and holidays.
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If the most recent First Friday is any indication, the fears of gallery owners in the Arts District are being realized. What started five years ago as a gallery tour/street party has become more a street party and less a gallery walk. It's an exceedingly young and partying crowd anymore. Natural progression, I guess.
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A sign that there is intelligent life (at least in a culinary sense) in this city was a bustling Origin India, which was three-quarters full late Saturday night. The restaurant just celebrated its one-year anniversary and the food and ambiance are great. It sits on Paradise Road across from the Hard Rock Hotel in the CVS shopping center, next to the comparatively annoying Johnny Rocket's. And while we're in that location, the Rainbow Bar & Grill, which actually closed and had plans to move to a new address (such as a major resort), has reopened at its original spot. The road work that has finally been completed on Paradise Road and Harmon Avenue certainly played into that turn of events.
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Attorney the pages: Last week, Las Vegas attorney, Fox analyst and weekly KXNT 840-AM host Robert Massi released his second book, "People Get Screwed All The Time" (HarperCollins, $22.95). Massi is representing Michaelina Bellamy, the former events coordinator at Our Lady of Las Vegas who in January was allegedly attacked by Father George Chaanine. Massi held a book-signing at The Reading Room at Mandalay Place on Friday night.
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Vegas moment: A week ago Thursday, at around 9:30 p.m., a guy wearing a full-blown skeleton costume, walking along Las Vegas Boulevard North at Gass Avenue. I have no further explanation of this.
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Gearing up for the next Mitt Romney stump speech? A black Honda Civic on St. Rose Parkway had the plate ARGHH.
Fabulous Las Vegas appears daily (well, almost) at this Web site. John Katsilometes can be reached at 990-7720, 812-9812 or at [email protected]