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| - Penn and Teller are not for everyone. I'll say that right away just to say what most people want to know the answer to. However, living in Las Vegas for almost 10 years, I'd always wanted to see these guys live. Hearing about them around the time I was in junior high school, their brand of magic got my attention right away. This is not just simply watch closely and be amazed with what I can do with my hands type of artistry, this is completely different.
Certain tricks do involve slight of hand yes, but other tricks, some of them you'll be scratching your head for days wondering "how'd they do that???" I got tickets for my fiancée's birthday last January and we got seats towards the far right side of the audience about 5-8 rows away from the stage which still offers a great view. However, this is the reason why this show loses a star.
The seating...is not the most comfortable. I think they are hoping for people that are not particularly wide in nature to sit in this theater because they have a thick armrest with a metallic base between each seat that is IMMOBILE. That's right, you cannot, no matter how hard you try, lift or remove the arm rests between the seats. This caused a lot of discomfort for my fiancée and I because it was difficult to sit in one position for more than 10-20 minutes and we couldn't hold each others hands very easily. Also, there's no place to put your jacket if you come in with one unless you stuff it under your seat, and that may be fine for some, but I for one hate throwing my jacket on the floor of anyplace and stuffing it under my seat in hopes that I will still find it there when I leave as well as find that nothing's been stolen from it so we basically just had to hold our jackets in our laps the whole time. Really hope they do a remodel of their seating for the future.
So, the show itself, is a combination of illusion and stand up comedy. Penn is a very outspoken man. That's nothing new. He spoke a lot about the TSA and laws and human rights and went so far as to produce his own miniature metallic copy of the Bill Of Rights and of course gave everyone notice that the item was available for purchase when they leave the show. I got a bit of a George Carlin vibe from Penn in fact.
Teller of course just has to appear and pull some interesting facial expressions and you get a great laugh. He also has tons of funny items he'll pull out of his pockets. His shtick reminded me a lot of Harpo Marx.
The crowd involvement was a nice touch, few magicians allow more than 4-5 people to come up on stage to volunteer during their shows, but Penn and Teller allowed practically 5 rows of people to come up on the stage to watch them make a cow disappear! Also, before the show, you're invited to come up on stage and sign an envelope as part of a trick involving prediction of what someone is reading.
The other thing that I would recommend to people going to the show is to actually be prepared to potentially BE involved! This is a show! It's supposed to be fun! The gentleman they had come up on stage for the part of the envelope trick had absolutely no emotion. He spoke in a very monotone voice and had a way about him like "Oh yeah, I'm up on stage with Penn and Teller...it's getting late...I hope I can still manage to have sex with my wife while I'm still in Las Vegas and take advantage of that all you can eat prime rib for $9.99..."
Again, it's a SHOW! You're here to see a show! Have fun! Look at what's happening up on stage! You're going to be amazed at what you see! If you're just going to see a trick and then say to yourself, "Oh yeah, I know how that's done..." or "I gotta look that up online when I get home so I can figure out how they did it and post it to my Facebook page to spoil it and say "You'll NEVER have to go see Penn and Teller after watching this video!"" then you're in the wrong place Mister.
I really enjoyed getting a chance to take a photo with Penn after the show. I'd seen him before many times being a local here in Las Vegas. From a local movie theater, to the AVN show, to just a random spotting at the Venetian. My fiancée also told him how much we enjoyed seeing his appearance on an episode of Modern Family.
Again, Penn and Teller are not for everyone, but if you say to yourself "Hey, they've been playing in Las Vegas for a while now, maybe I should check them out..." you may just be surprised at what you'll see!
Remember, the acts that are still playing in Las Vegas for over 10 years, are usually still here for a REASON, and it's because they are GOOD!
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