Originally the Morse Theatre and variously thereafter a synagogue, a shoe repair store and most recently a splendiferous jazz club restored by Jennifer Pritzker, the 249-seat Rhapsody Theater reopened Tuesday night in Rogers Park with magic at the forefront of its future.

Indeed, Chicago’s Far North Side is seeing quite the renaissance in slight of hand: the Chicago Magic Lounge is located just a couple of miles south of this new operation, formerly the Mayne Stage and now operated by the physician magician Ricardo Rosenkranz.

Rosenkranz is on the bill for the fall but, for its opening show, the Rhapsody has purloined one of the Magic Lounge’s main stars, Lucy Darling, the vampish alter-ego of the immensely entertaining magician Carisa Hendrix.

Lucy, a character who lands somewhere between Marlene Dietrich and Mae West, fits nicely in the swank quarters at the Rhapsody, where she has a bigger stage and more room to make her signature cocktails appear, vanish and morph into other libations entirely. Hendrix is as much a comedy improviser as a magician and she has apparently used the pandemic to polished her very funny repartee with the audience, using her noirish, glam persona to gently lampoon men who will, it appears, do most anything at her command. She’s a PG-rated pleasure, both retro-Vegas and subtly postmodern, enjoyable on many levels and technically accomplished, charming and kind.

Since she’s the entire opening bill at the Rhapsody, Hendrix has added much to an act with which I had been pretty familiar, including a new interview segment that went well Thursday night after a couple of bum audience volunteers in the first few minutes.

I fear the art of being such a volunteer is being lost in our streaming world: people either seem to think they need to be funny (no, that’s the star’s job), to memorialize their moment on their phone (nothing worse), or to freeze like a rabbit staring at headlights and say nothing specific that the performer can actually use (death to improv, that).

I am thinking of offering classes in audience volunteering since performers like Hendrix deserve the best. Here’s the opening lesson: If she calls on you, follow instructions, skip the gags, lose the ego and for heaven’s sake offer up something with which she can work. And put away the phone. The live arts are fragile enough.

Overall, the Rhapsody is a work in progress. There’s no restaurant yet, limited bar service (or so it appeared Tuesday), and the sensory ambiance needs to be plusher and sexier, given the possibilities here for sophisticated-yet-affordable date nights in Roger Park. Of course, this jewel box of a place is just getting back on its feet after some three years of locked doors.

But magic and music have returned to one of the North Side’s most venerable neighborhood venues on a great avenue with a long and diverse history of live entertainment with a touch of Chicago glamour. A rhapsodic moment for Rogers Park indeed, and one worthy of support.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

Review: “Lucy Darling: Indulgence” (3 stars)

When: Through July 16

Where: Rhapsody Theater, 1328 W. Morse Ave.

Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Tickets: $35-$75 at rhapsodytheater.com