Being tricked is part of the art of illusion. That is something unique about magic that does not so much apply to other arts. Is a trick ever a deception? This is the odd question floating around Siegfried & Roy's farewell performance Saturday at the Bellagio. At the end of the day, I consider this controversy not  important and sadly distracting, but it merits a look at anyway because of the light it shines on what expectations we bring into a performance.

On Saturday at Bellagio, if nothing else, I watched an incredibly moving piece of stagecraft. It was officially the farewell performance of Siegfried & Roy at a benefit for the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute. Mayor Oscar Goodman was on hand to call the night, with his usual hyperbole, "the most important night in Las Vegas history." In part, this had less to do with the performance than with the project being supported: bringing a first-rate medical center to Las Vegas (to be staffed by the Cleveland Clinic) and to be housed in a Frank Gehry-designed building.

So, here is what we in the audience saw during the roughly 10-minute performance. Two men appeared onstage covered head to toe in outfits and wearing masks. One had a pronounced limp and seemed physically frail, steadying himself on his partner occasionally. After some cabinet illusions, the performance ended with the masks coming off and Siegfried & Roy posing with a giant cat. Roy needed some help getting his mask off. It was a powerfully impressive, human and moving performance. But it was also a magic trick.

The way their show ended at Mirage offered so little hope that to see them on a Vegas stage again was an inspiring moment and had the entire audience on their feet. It was the one night I have spent in Vegas recently where no one talked about the economy.

We learned later that the cat used in the illusion was Montecore, the very animal whose savaging of Roy in front of a live audience had ended their show at Mirage so abruptly. Like many, I went home realizing our greatest novelists could not have written a more complete and fulfilling ending to Siegfried & Roy's story in Vegas.

Of course, you wake up in the morning and think, "How did they do that?" Why would they need masks for a performance where everyone knew it was them? Was that Roy the entire time with the limp or someone else playing off our expectations that Roy would be the person limping? And was that really Montecore? Norm Clarke has taken on those questions in his Review-Journal column today. 

I checked with Siegfried & Roy's publicist and was given this answer from their manager to my "yes" or "no" question: Was Roy onstage as the man with the limp in the costume throughout the entire performance:

“It was Siegfried & Roy all the way.”

 

This on the surface seems to be a yes, but I still detect wiggle room. I would have preferred a simple "Yes."  What possible reason can anyone come up with that Roy would be wearing a mask for 9 of his 10 final minutes on stage? After all, his limp would make hiding his identity impossible unless the limp was being used to suggest his identity? Roy could have waited to be substituted into the act at the end. But making you think you are seeing one person while looking at another is a basic strategy of stage magic.  The bottom line to me: I don't care when Roy appeared. Magic is about creating illusions that are otherwise impossible. The audience consents to be being tricked as part of what you expect from a magic performance. This is totally different, for example, than a singer mouthing in front of a dead mike while her voice plays through the PA. These entertainers created a storyline performance for 10 minutes that was far more emotional and with more nuance than anything that Siegfried & Roy were known to put on stage during their campy glory years. This illusion showed all the pain, agony and effort of trying to do the superhuman while being so very human, and the payoff was that moment of standing applause as an audience saw on stage Siegfried & Roy and Montecore.  Who was where when is details. Is it interesting how much of the performance contained Roy? Sure, if you are a magic technician.

But consider that this was an audience needing to be motivated to give to a charity fighting brain damage of the sort that often looks like it will require a miracle to make any progress.  The belief in anything being possible is an illusion, one necessary to any progress. Even the painful limp and frail demeanor showing the human effort behind even a miracle helped make Siegfried & Roy's goodbye performance the perfect entertainment foil for this night. And fighting the odds from being near dead on a hospital table less than six years ago to being able to participate in this performance was a powerful message about possibility that only Siegfried & Roy could deliver. So, when you are asking when the illusion ended and what the reality of the situation, you have already done what magicians want you to do: have you leaving the theater wondering, how did they do that?  (Courtesy photo)