‘Mental’ at O’Sheas may not amaze, but will at least amuse you

Sam Morris

Mentalist Luke Jermay performs his act at O’Sheas Thursday, Sept. 24, 2009.

By Joe Brown (contact)

Monday, Sept. 28, 2009 | 2 a.m.

“Mental,” a new mind-reading show at O’Sheas, invokes a Las Vegas oxymoron: “Mind” and “reading” don’t really go together in this town. “Mind” is something most people come here to lose, or at least get away from for a few days. And “reading,” since it’s done privately and is so dang hard to monetize, well, it’s not something we talk about much around here.

Anyway, Luke Jermay has come to Vegas from London’s West End and the tough crowds of Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival, where he made a reputation as a mind-gamer. His mission: To find out if anything remains of our over-served, hyper-stimulated minds to read.

Jermay’s act joins the flashier, fleshier “Freaks” in the upstairs showroom at the eternal frathouse that is O’Sheas, and it’s part of hypnotist/producer Anthony Cool’s ingenious strategy of booking unusual low-overhead shows with high word-of-mouth potential.

“Mental” isn’t going to “freak” your mind, or even get to third base with it, but if you adjust your Vegas-deformed sense of scale and spectacle, it is an absorbing 70-minute diversion.

What Jermay does (for a significantly lower ticket price) is comparable to what psychic John Edward does in his appearances at the Flamingo — minus the dead people.

Faux-hawked and tattooed and just a tad scruffy in a black vest and jeans, Jermay banters skillfully with audience members, and his small-scale persuasion and manipulation tricks are generally about guessing people’s names, playing cards, astrological signs, fragments of childhood stories and the color of their panties.

Immediately after getting a successful “hit” from a subject, Jermay calls for “huge applause” for that person and, while he’s still ahead, darts to another. It’s small-scale stuff, but it pays off with plenty of “How did he do that?” moments. (Jermay is just as skilled at brushing off a missed guess.)

One of his stunts in particular just has to involve a plant. There’s no fault or foul implied — plenty of shows on the Strip employ audience confederates, and it’s a valid technique as long as it’s done well. I won’t give it away here, because Jermay’s plant was so undetectable and clearly some people bought it, but the punch line beggared belief.

What’s most exceptional about Jermay’s act is that he looks at the audience, closely inspecting individual facial expressions, stances, clothing. This in itself flips the convention of the typical Vegas show, where the performer is the subject of all attention. Jermay’s audience gets to feel important, if only for a few moments. He closed the show with a sincere thanks to the crowd, and a plea to support live performance in an age of “reality stars” and prefab pop tarts.

During the very clever encore, I was called up on stage with three other audience members, and there I sat blinking into the bright lights. It all involved something about picking a chair, numbers, colors, envelopes and a $10,000 check. I’ve never had a poker face, and whatever was going on, I found myself as gullible and easily led as any other mark, reflexively agreeing to just about whatever Jermay suggested.

That makes me — what? — a “Mental” case?

I enjoyed Jermay’s understated, non-ingratiating approach to the audience — he’s not begging to be liked, even subtly sarcastic, and that’s refreshing. My sole gripe is that Jermay pads and embroiders his shtick with New Age music and motivational hokum, which would seem better suited to one of his corporate gigs.

Given time to study him close-up on stage, I got the sense that Jermay may have been something of a rough character in a previous professional incarnation — maybe it was the tattoos on his neck and knuckles.

Wherever he came from, Jermay’s here now, and we should all be glad he’s decided to use his “Mental” powers for good.