Reza Cuts A Massive Slice Of Entertainment
[Written by Vejay Steede]
Flummoxed. Just straight flummoxed. Not that you should go to an illusionist’s show and try to figure things out, but, let’s be honest; most of us have a secret desire to watch something impossible and think to ourselves: “Yeah, I can do that.”
Thing is, most of us can’t begin to unravel the mysteries of magic and illusion; which is why illusionists, street magicians, mentalists, and various other modern sorcerers continue to be high quality entertainers as well.
Reza is one of the best around, and the jam packed house that witnessed his spectacular stage show at the Fairmont Southampton on Saturday night can attest to the mind twisting efficacy of his mastery.
The advance promo video for the event:
The show itself was a virtual feast of multi-media, multi-discipline sensationalism; chock full of video clips, up-tempo music, slick dance routines, perfectly timed comedy, and, well, heaps and heaps of wonder.
There were big illusions like the opening piece where a girl appeared in a cage, then disappeared completely only to reappear in a sealed box a few seconds later. There were physical danger thrill pieces like the broken bottle in the paper bag trick [which was memorably aided by audience member Judy].
And there were mind melting prediction pieces like when Claudia [a randomly chosen audience member] came to the stage and struck a pose to be made into a portrait only for Reza to draw the portrait in front of our eyes, have Claudia paint the picture with colors of her choosing, then reveal an already completed portrait that looked exactly like the one Claudia had just composed from pose to paint color. Flummoxed. So flummoxed indeed that the only way I could possibly describe that trick was with a run-on sentence. So there.
Starting just after 9.00 p.m. and running a generous two-and-a-half hours [with a 15 minute intermission in the middle], the show was funny, whimsical, and truly perplexing at times. There were loads of laughs, lots of thrills, and oodles of entertainment for the whole family. Of course, this was always promoted as a family show, and the audience certainly reflected that, with everyone from preschoolers to grandparents present and accounted for on Saturday night.
Reza was exceedingly charming and charismatic throughout, inviting us to love him instantly as he led us on a journey through the impossible made real. He was as funny as his act was astounding, and he added quite a few thrills through verbal misdirection, feigning ignorance only to prove moments later that he was in full control of the situation the whole time.
This was best illustrated with his finale, which involved a certain chocolate bar that had been named by a random audience member earlier in the show. Reza had pretended to be entirely unfamiliar with the chocolate bar named [the local favorite Watchamacallit], and prompted the audience member to say Snickers after a brief open discussion. Then he took an envelope that had been sealed in a box on the side of the stage the whole night, showed the audience that the envelope had Snickers written on it, then opened the envelope and pulled out … a Watchamacallit. The crowd lost it. Straight flummoxed.
That mysterious box also had a large piece of paper in it, on which was written the first two names of a random audience member who was selected by audience members tossing a brick made of sponge around the room [Keisha Juanita], as well as a few other predictions that were just impossible to know before the show started.
Simply amazing things occurred before our eyes on Saturday night, leaving us astonished, excited, mystified, and thoroughly entertained. Oh, and, of course, flummoxed.
Thrilling from start to finish, the closing performance of Reza’s three show visit was nothing short of spectacular. He was an instant hit, and promised to return with bigger and bigger illusions and completely different shows in the future.
The folks at Extreme Entertainment can hold their heads high for bringing this level of quality entertainment to Bermuda, and when Reza does return, there’s absolutely no reason why he shouldn’t be greeted with sold out venues and enthusiastic crowds.
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Great show – but Extreme Entertainment totally botched the Friday night with a 35 min. start delay (shame the show was set to start so late anyway @ 9pm – very strange choice as young people are inevitably a large part of the audience) plus a half hour intermission. The queues at the start were the worst chaos I’ve ever seen at a SHP show – backlogged to the main hotel doors. It seemed the seating was the issue as there were no assigned seats at ticket purchase – attendees more or less sat wherever they liked in either the “reserved” or “non-reserved” seating sections (no ushers) and inevitably there were lots of sporadic single and double “spare seats” throughout the auditorium leading to what seemed like a massive seating shortage as there were challenges to accommodate ticket holders without splitting them up. But great show otherwise…
9pm is typical start time for such shows in places like New York & Las Vegas. There was also a show put on dedicated just for kids early in the day for Saturday for the kids that couldn’t make it to the late show. Friday had hiccups but the following show made great steps to correct the short comings of the first night with many of the issues you bought up rectified (though there was still hiccups here & there & still a shortage of chairs in the end).
Hv to agree with the first comment. Parking was the first issue. What a nightmare. Instead of opening doors at 8.00 they should hv opened 7.30. I had someone in front of me who took up two seats
The intermission was way to long
His shoes are usually so much better
Yes it was a great show but the hype promo didn’t fit the show.
I hope that someone sees to it that the many posters that were put up all over the place are promptly removed and not left in place to weather into trash over time.
You forgot to mention Elizabeth, the Greek Canadian. That was a show all in itself, LOL!!!
Friday night was very different. It was a shambles. Arrived with my family at about 7.40 to join the queue. Got in the Ampitheatre after an hour, and sat down over towards one side. Waited nearly an hour longer for the show to start, late, at about 9.30, because it had taken an hour and a half to let the audience in. Annoying.
Could not see the first ten minutes of the show, a short movie about Reza, because along with a large proportion of the audience, we couldn’t see the screen at the back of the stage from the place where we were sitting. (The screens at the sides were unused for this, bizarelly, continuing to show the name of the promoter). Annoying.
Reza them performed for about 30 minutes before the intermission, which was 40 minutes. More waiting.
Then he came back on for 45 minutes or so, and it all ended about 11.40pm.
So for a bit over an hour of entertainment we waited and queued for two and a half hours. The event was badly organised and not fun.
Reza was very good. Funny, cool, and entertaining. But we will never attend anything organised by Extreme Entertainment again.