Friday, March 28, 2003 | 8:35 a.m.
What: "Hypnolarious."
When: 9 p.m. Wednesday through Sundays.
Where: Bourbon Street Showroom.
Tickets: $43.95, includes one drink.
Information: (702) 360-5419.
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Terry Stokes gets nervous if people don't fall asleep during his performances at Bourbon Street.
The native of Atlanta has been putting volunteers to sleep for fun and profit for more than 35 years with a comic hypnosis act billed as the funniest in the business.
That's a bit of an overstatement, but Stokes is funny.
Probably more accurately, his subjects are funny -- or they can be. It is a hit-and-miss proposition. You can't predict what will come out of the mouths of the unsuspecting.
Stokes' job is to provide the framework for scenes, but it's up to the volunteers to deliver the punch lines.
He is the guide who leads his troupe of somnambulant guests through a series of comic set-ups designed to elicit humorous behavior from the volunteer performers and to entertain audiences.
"The hardest idea to get across to people is that hypnosis is not what you see in the movies," Stokes recently told a group of volunteers. "People come up all the time and tell me they have a problem, that they were not really hypnotized because they could hear everything I said.
"You're going to hear me. If you don't hear me, the problem is you are dead."
After a quick hypnotic spell was cast on the volunteers, they began acting as if they were rapper M.C. Hammer, singer Britney Spears and weight-loss guru Richard Simmons.
A guest wearing a baseball cap was convinced that every time Stokes gave a signal, the volunteer would hear a voice come from beneath his hat.
Everyone believed comedian Drew Carey was in the audience.
A man performed as Dolly Parton.
Two volunteers got into an argument over Coca-Cola, one arguing vehemently that it tasted great, the other that it was less filling.
One woman was convinced that if she rubbed the head of a bald man in the audience a genie would make her wishes come true -- and the faster she rubbed the more wishes would be fulfilled.
A man became a 6-year-old girl; a woman snuggled up to a stranger, thinking he was a Teddy bear; a volunteer became a dog; everyone's tongues leaped out of their mouths and began to dance.
Stokes has joined a growing number of hypnotists who are putting people to sleep in a city that supposedly never sleeps.
Scott Lewis, "Dr. Scott's Twisted Mind Reading & Comedy Hypnosis Show," is at the Riviera; Justin Tranz, "Hip-nosis, Playing With Your Head," is at O'Sheas; Rick Spell, "Master Comedy Hypnosis Stage Spectacular," is at Casino Royale; and "Dr. Naughty" (the "Almost X-Rated" hypnotist) is at Greek Isles.
Stokes was slated to open at the Plaza downtown in December, but the deal fell through at the last minute, after he had already arrived in Vegas.
Space was available at Bourbon Street's 100-seat showroom, which Stokes grabbed. After almost three months of performing at 10:30 p.m., Wednesdays through Saturdays, he recently moved to the 9 p.m. time slot and added Sundays to his workweek.
Bourbon Street has begun to spread its entertainment wings in recent months, adding the magic team of Victor and Diamond ("Soul of Magic") and the off-center "Shock!" to the lineup.
Stokes, who has hypnotized subjects in front of thousands of people, doesn't seem to mind the cramped quarters of the tiny showroom a block east of the Strip on Flamingo Road.
Most of his career has been spent on the road, often performing 200 dates a year at state fairs, rodeos, nightclubs and other venues. He's ready to set down some roots.
He sees Bourbon Street as a mere sleepover on his way to bigger things.
Stokes tells the entire audience: "Sometime next week you will all have an uncontrollable desire to call HBO and tell them Terry Stokes needs his own HBO special."
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