Review: ‘Magic Parlour’ is a special retro magic experience in new digs at Petterino’s
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Dennis Watkins, Chicago’s premiere resident magician, has plied his trade of vanishment, extrasensory perception and various other unearthly feats of physical skill for some 15 years at the Palmer House Hilton. He’s been a one-man economic generator for Chicago’s Loop, a tourist pleaser sine pari, and a purveyor of rare, retro downtown glamour in a city where such experiences must remain a part of the global brand.
He’s also a generously inclined close-up magician and a gifted live performer who genuinely enjoys talking to all kinds of people and empowering them in front of their dates. Nobody more deserved a better room.
Happily, Watkins is now to be found in the basement of the Petterino’s eatery, a theater-district restaurant that, to my continued frustration over the last 20 years, has yet to fully embrace its destiny as a showbiz meeting place. But having “The Magic Parlor” downstairs, in the party space where I once saw Mel Brooks dance with Anne Bancroft on a table, surely is an upgrade. Baby steps, over decades.
Watkins, who also now enjoys a relationship with the Goodman Theatre, has a suite of rooms, allowing for preshow cocktails, an intimate main showroom (holding 70 people or so, all with tables) and a close-up parlor, allowing him to offer a boutique post-show experience for VIPs, many of whom peppered him with questions Thursday, their tongues loosened in a couple of cases by one too many of the “Magic Parlour’s” Houdini cocktails. But Watkins, genial to the end, was unfazed. Over 15 years and hundreds of performances, you see them all and learn how to deal.
I last caught “The Magic Parlour” nearly 12 years ago (Watkins must have made the interim years vanish) and he’s only improved with time. Then and now, I have watched him win over an initially skeptical crowd. His show uses a lot of volunteers — so many, in fact, that people relax because they know they will be able to take part without having to do too much. Most everyone at least gets to pick a number and get the traditional round of applause.
Watkins could do a lot more with this space, up to and including the creation of a multi-performer downtown venue for the growing magic market in this city. But he’s likely to always be the main attraction, offering a full 90-minute show with the luxe add-on that’s entirely worth it, just for the chance to play his rigged shell game.
The main difference from 12 years ago? People now really struggle to put away their phones, even when asked to do so. Watkins just smiled afterward when I mentioned that to him; he is trying to meet his audiences where they live, as his mentors taught him, but also to put away the mundane world outside. The Lord’s work.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Magic Parlour” (4 stars)
When: Open run
Where: Petterino’s, 50 W. Randolph St.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes (optional 25-minute encore for $30 extra)
Tickets: $85 (includes one drink) at 312-443-3800 and www.themagicparlourchicago.com
