☆☆

Mason King’s Sleight of Mind is a primer on classic mentalism effects. A confident performer,  every piece of King’s show is delivered with the utmost technical perfection, from preparing the audience for what is to come to chaining together the different ways he would read their minds. Nothing in Sleight of Mind is uncomfortable, nothing is offensive. Over the course of the hour reviewed King received one single surprised gasp, a few chuckles, and polite applause for the majority of his tricks, most of them without having to overtly prompt the audience to do so.

But, I’m afraid to say, shows like this are exactly why some people don’t like magic shows. Magic isn’t off-putting when it’s actually bad, no, that makes it horrifically interesting. It’s off-putting when it is bland. Sleight of Mind really is just a primer- nothing more and nothing less than every trick in some fictional volume of mentalism standards, with a few general magic standards thrown in.  Everything from the tricks done to the words around them is like script from someone and everyone else’s book, even when King introduces himself: I was (enter number under 15) years old when I got into magic, here’s a line about my mentor, here’s how I’m going to read your mind.

Sleight of Mind has no narrative, no theme, no gimmick, no twist. King makes no real attempt at comedy and has no sense of comedic timing, nor does he afford the audience a sense of himself, or his personality, or make an effort to tie the humanity and stories of his audience members in. He gives us no reason to care, no reason to be invested, no reason to spend money to see his show. Sleight of Mind is a perfect first draft, a perfect skeleton, a perfect ‘what’ and ‘how’ to overlay with ‘why?’ Now all King needs is to find that missing piece, to find the ‘why’, or, if he knows it, to share it with his audiences. Because truthfully, that it the piece that matters the most.

More information on Mason King and his performance dates can be found here.