Small room doesn’t cramp Wyrick’s style

Friday, March 5, 2004 | 8:28 a.m.

Perhaps the biggest surprise with Steve Wyrick, known for his grand-scale illusions, is that he successfully moved his production from a 950-seat room at the Sahara to a 420-seat room at the Aladdin.

He went from a venue the size of a small airplane hangar to one the size of a large garage. And he did it without losing the dramatic impact of making a plane and an automobile appear.

If anything, the effect is more startling because of the intimacy of the room. The large illusions are truly impressive when you are seated so close to them that you can almost reach out and touch the Hummer and the Beechcraft.

When Wyrick walks through enormous spinning blades, you wonder if you're going to get splattered.

You know when he rides his motorcycle into a wire cage and the cage rises that Wyrick and the cycle are going to disappear and then reappear at the rear of the room. But when it happens, you still can't figure it out, no matter how close you are to the action.

Wyrick, a Dallas native who has been practicing magic since age 7, apparently counts among his fans casino executives, some of whom have shelled out big bucks to create showrooms for him.

The former corporate entertainer/magician arrived at the Lady Luck in 1997, where $2 million was spent renovating the tent-like theater at the downtown casino.

In 2000 he moved to the Sahara, where undisclosed millions were spent building a room that resembled an abandoned airplane hangar. The illusions for the show reportedly cost around $7 million.

After three years, and some disagreement with management, Wyrick left the Sahara in August and materialized in November at the Aladdin, where he took over the renovated CenterStage theater. The cabaret-style Center-Stage, where guests once sat at long tables on a flat floor, briefly was home to the Society of Seven revue and the adult-themed "X: An Erotic Adventure."

When Wyrick and the Aladdin struck a deal, the room was remodeled to meet the exacting demands of the magician, known for his attention to minutiae.

The floor was raked and theater seating added. Walls were knocked out and the stage, which has a rather low ceiling, was expanded -- making it wider and deeper.

The room is intimate and comfortable, a sharp contrast to the more spectacular space he had at that Sahara. And there isn't a bad seat in the house.

While the theater allows Wyrick to continue to perform his signature illusions, the new venue also has provided him with the incentive to focus on one of his unheralded talents -- sleight of hand.

In one routine he takes three rings from members of the audience, places them in a glass snifter, twirls them with a swizzle stick and the rings become interlocked. It's a downsized version of the classic Chinese linking ring trick.

In another, he performs a complicated card trick called the "654 Club."

And then there are the mundane tricks, including slicing an assistant into a dozen pieces and merging a black poodle and a white poodle to create a Dalmatian.

Wyrick continues to impress fans with such illusions as escaping from chains moments before he is sliced into pieces by the Arm of Death, but his show has added a new danger.

In the middle of the performance he leaves the showroom, goes to the Strip in front of the Aladdin and does street magic for strangers passing by.

The piece adds a certain amount of uncertainty to his show, and it gives Wyrick a chance to again demonstrate his close-up magic talent (tearing a dollar bill, bending a quarter, putting a lit cigarette through a sweater).

But when dealing with strangers, you don't know what is going to happen. In a show full of surprises, they could provide the biggest surprise of all.