“Steve Dacri: In Your Face — The Up Close Magic Experience”

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Magic shows never followed along with the whole “What happens here …” thing, and that’s usually not a problem.

Family-friendly magic shows along the Strip prove a marketing spin is one version of reality, actual visitation another. But as a result, Las Vegas magic became synonymous with white tigers and Michael Jackson wear.

Maybe that’s part of the problem with Criss Angel’s hard-edged “Believe,” though most agree Angel is his own worst enemy. The white tiger image is more likely to be an issue in getting conventioneers to step inside the Shimmer Showroom and watch Steve Dacri.

Dacri puts on what I would call a “grown-up” magic show, for to say “adult” would imply that he tells dirty jokes or surrounds himself with topless women. None of that here; just naked (magically blank) playing cards.

You could take your youngsters (if they are over age 4) to Dacri’s weekly “In Your Face” showcase at the Las Vegas Hilton, except you shouldn’t really want to. Dacri hails back to an era when you came to Las Vegas to get away from your children. And in this Vegas, a close-up magician can be as acceptable a cocktail diversion as a piano trio.

Dacri brings his sleight-of-hand almost to your table, guiding you through it one step at a time. He coaxes gasps and chuckles out of such basics as making silver dollars “jump” from fist to fist, or three-card monte with giant cards, in which the audience is collectively dressed down for not paying attention.

The touchstone for this type of act is Hollywood’s Magic Castle, where Dacri worked for years before moving to Las Vegas in 2003. It’s a Hollywood institution where men still wear ties and jackets, but it’s a semiprivate club and so not as famous as the nearby Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

Las Vegas likes to keep its shows separate from its casual drinking, but the Shimmer at least approximates the Castle atmosphere. An opening video starts out scarily like the setup to a ’70s porn movie, but turns out to be a young Dacri on an old “Candid Camera” segment.

Then the current edition walks out, still rocking the porn ‘stache and the little foam balls he calls “Martians,” which breed right inside an audience member’s hand in one of Dacri’s signature bits.

Though it’s a one-man show, Dacri is seldom alone onstage as he recruits helpers throughout. One is taught magic and of course is a slow learner. Another chooses a card that goes into a bag with a razor blade; every card in the deck is shredded except the one picked.

Dacri’s polished banter moves the breezy 75 minutes along, and opening night turned up only a need to finesse the pacing and the camera close-ups which aid those seated beyond the first few tables. The real magic here will lie in the marketing. How will they clarify what the show is? And just as important, what it isn’t?

Perhaps a happy hour promotion? Or would a double martini make Dacri’s job of fooling you too easy?

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.