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| Lake and The Muppets (Evan Zimmerman) |
The most amazing feat in magician Rob Lake's Broadway show is the excitement that a bunch of moving pieces of fabric can generate in an audience. I'm talking, of course, about The Muppets, who are underused in this 80-minute entertainment but are greeted with rapturous applause every time they make an appearance.
When it comes to name recognition, the fame of Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and their friends far outweighs that of Lake, a charming, low-key illusionist who was a quarterfinalist on TV's America's Got Talent. It's hard to fathom why anyone imagined audiences would pay Broadway prices for this amusing but slight show, which might have been able to make a go of it at one of New World Stages' smaller Off Broadway spaces.
The Muppets aren't very well integrated into the magic. Instead, they're the comic relief in between Lake's tricks. He saws a woman in half, levitates another and engages in a couple of mind-reading games with audience members. They're tricks most of the adults in the audience have seen before, but still fresh enough for the many children in attendance.
And it's Lake's interaction with the audience that gives his show a bit of life, as he wanders into the house with a handheld camera, getting individuals involved in his tricks. The downside is it displays how many empty seats there are in the audience. Lake needs more than Muppets to elevate the magic of his show.
