Carolyn Janis, a 25-year-old massage therapist from Minnesota, attended with her dad Wayne Moles, a Manhattan resident. “I intended to come for months,” said Moles before the show. “And when my daughter said she was going to visit, it was perfect. The idea of seeing sleight-of-hand was so much fun I couldn’t resist,” he added. Moles had seen Cohen perform at a convention in Pebble Beach and was transfixed. “It was so much fun and his ability to trick you is just great.”
Then Cohen advised the audience, already cozy in soft sofas and dining room chairs, to get ready for an evening of high drama and mind manipulation. He stood before the audience, meticulously dressed in a dark suit, blue shirt and brown tie, complete with his glasses attached to an eyeglass necklace librarians are wont to wear. And then the fun began. He performed card tricks, “read” minds, quoted passages from books guests were asked to locate, purloined thoughts and thoroughly won over the appreciative crowd.
He asked everyone to write down a favorite beverage, chose three cards and proceeded to pour those very same drinks from one teapot. It was great, silly fun and everyone willingly suspended disbelief. Including the cynical teenagers who tried (but failed) to deconstruct the tricks.
But the most impressive was when he asked an audience member to draw an image while he stood yards away with a similar sketchpad. That audience member, a born skeptic, drew some semblance of a cat-type creature and held it up to the audience before her. Then Cohen held up his sketch. It was of a cat, drawn in much the same amateurish manner as the participant’s. “How’d he do that?” murmured the crowd. I still don’t know how he read my mind. But I kept both pictures for a souvenir.
Cohen will be performing at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco in June. After that, he’ll be returning to the Waldorf Towers at the Waldorf-Astoria (100 E. 50th St. 212-361-8751, $52/pp) Fridays at 7 and 9 p.m. The show has been extended indefinately. For updates and more information check his website: http://www.customagic.com.