Magic Masala

It was a large auditorium (seating for 500) with a small crowd (50 seated). The opening act was pretty thinly veiled prop magic with the a pulsing jungle beat song acting as the background, and the interlude and every free spot of music filler there was (including the oh-so-awful crank up and down of the volume between words of the wannabe-dj ). As an interlude the "eye-candy" (being the Indian girl in capri jeans and a shirt) came out and danced to a nearly as bad song. This was followed by an awkward pause that was eventually filled in as this girl returned to the stage, now joined by the skinny Indian guy with the gap tooth, silver shirt and gold flashy vest! Together they began a duet, but it looked as if they hadn't ever really rehearsed it. As the song went on (and on and on) the coordination just got worse and they were definitely ad-libbing, and poorly.

The next act saw them attempt to call people up on stage. Nobody wanted to go and finally they persuaded a boy of 5 and a boy of perhaps 8 to be their puppets. This resulted in the most awful act during which they "milked" the silver & gold man's nipples to fill a glass and then poured it down the 8 year old's mouth. This was repeated using the younger boys fly of his pants (which they also unzipped) and after again forcing it down the 8 year old's throat he spit it back up onto the stage floor. For the rest of the night there was nary a hand when they asked for volunteers - at least I think that's what they were asking for (it was entirely in Hindi and I had my earplugs in to combat the overly loud music).

Intermission was far too long for my grumbling hungry tummy, and when it seemed like they NEEDED to put something back on nearly a half hour later guess what we got... The music came up, this time a new song, but the dynamic duo of 'eye candy' and 'silver & gold' performed the exact same routine!

Desperate for people the actual magician who finally showed his face (and giant pants and leather boots and headdress and makeup) in the second half pulled me up on stage against my will. Rolling with it I climbed into the potato sack for a bit while the muffled Hindi sounds around me gave no indication as to what was to happen next. Thankfully I was let out and then tied the sack with the magician inside. Standing off to the side I watched as they lowered a cloak in front of the sack and then it scooted under the curtain and was replaced by a new one (which the audience couldn't see). My suspicions of the switch were then proved correct when they asked me to untie the sack and I saw that it wasn't the type of knots I'd tied. For my trouble the slapped a handcuff on my arm roughly, so I was attached to the magician. When I reached for the lever I guessed was the hidden release they slapped my hand away. I was relieved to clamour back down to my seat.

Praying for the finale it came with little showmanship. In fact for the "saw the magician in half trick" they didn't even bother to saw him, they just put him in a box and then split it so that the super-fake dummy legs moved mechanically and the magician's waved, while doubled over in his half of the box.

I burst from the nearly 3 hour performance pretty disappointed despite paying less than $2 Cdn and being upgraded to "VIP" for free. Not only that but it was nearly midnight and all the street vendors had gone home so I was left to scrounge up a midnight snack for my aching belly.