Romeo does his mentors proud at Mirage

Friday, June 7, 2002 | 10:22 a.m.

Siegfried and Roy make white tigers appear. Their protege, Darren Romeo, produces a white piano.

Therein lies the difference between the two magic shows at The Mirage. One is a grand spectacle involving exotic animals; the other a subtle performance of music and magic.

Romeo is an energetic and sensitive young showman filled with confidence and poise. He so impressed his mentors when they saw him performing at the Flamingo Las Vegas a couple of years ago, they took him into their magic circle and shaped a matinee show around his multiple talents.

And the show is marvelous. It touches the audience on many levels, from the awe-inspiring illusions, to the heartfelt songs, to the humorous asides.

"Siegfried & Roy Present Darren Romeo, The Voice of Magic" debuted at the 1,500-seat Siegfried & Roy Theatre last week. It raises the standard for afternoon shows on the Strip -- and eventually should find an evening home, when the time is right.

Romeo is equally adept at singing and illusions and is talented enough to succeed with either skill. For one performer to be gifted in two such diverse areas gives showgoers the best of both worlds.

With Siegfried and Roy drawing on their own skills and experience to advise him, Romeo has created a stylish show that is perfectly paced. At times Romeo moves quickly and energetically from one illusion to the next; at others he slows down to elicit the most from a stirring illusion.

Throughout the performance, Romeo connected with his audience. Whether it was through song or through conversation, he never broke the connection.

From the moment the curtain went up, we knew we were going to be treated to an aesthetic evening. Onstage there was an illusion of swirling clouds back-lit by a moon. A dark figure emerged from clouds and walked down out from the sky.

After descending to the stage, Romeo sat in a straight-backed chair and was covered with a cloth. A moment later there was an explosion and a cloud of smoke, and nothing remained but the chair.

The magician re-appeared at the back of the theater, rushed onstage and began singing Bobby Darin's 1959 hit "Dream Lover."

"Every night I hope and pray, a dream lover will come my way," Romeo sang while assembling a transparent glass box.

As he draped a cloth over the box, he ended the song: "... I want a girl to call my own." He pulled the cloth away to reveal a girl in the box.

"What did you expect, a tiger?" he asked the audience.

There were many subtle, and not-so-subtle, references to "Siegfried & Roy" throughout the afternoon, which was understandable considering their impact on the singing magician's career.

After the Darin song, a sexy female assistant in a skimpy tiger costume joined Romeo as he began to sing "Talk to the Animals."

While singing, he discovered a white tiger's tail on the stage floor and the tail leapt to his arm.

"They wouldn't give me a whole tiger, just a little tail," Romeo quipped.

The tail flew around the stage and into a glass jug, where it joined another white tiger's tail. The two tails then flew out of the jug, followed by three smaller tails.

Throughout the afternoon's performance, Romeo introduced magic with songs appropriate to the illusion, whether it was subtle sleight-of-hand tricks or the shooting of an assistant from a cannon into a giant fish bowl.

One of the most poignant moments of the show was when Romeo brought a female member of the audience onstage, sat her on a stool next to a white piano that had just materialized and began reciting a poem about a rose.

While reciting the verse, he folded a piece of paper into the shape of a rose, set the paper on fire and a real rose appeared.

Romeo took an illusion from the late Harry Blackstone Jr., involving a light bulb that continued to glow as it flew around the room and over the heads of audience members.

And Romeo took one from his own past to close the show -- an illusion he created in 1994 for a magical version of the musical "Phantom of the Opera."

In the illusion, Romeo passed through a mirror, levitated an assistant and then made her disappear, all the while singing "Music of the Night."

If anyone wants to know where Romeo is, he's at The Mirage enthralling afternoon audiences with his voice and his magic -- and that's no illusion.