By Dottie Ashley

Post and Courier Reviewer

‘Anderson Illusions - A World Beyond Reality,’ a blend of magic, music and audience participation, seemed to be just what the large audience that nearly filled the Footlight Players’ 240 seats, wanted on Sunday afternoon. Families came to savor the talents of Russell Anderson, singer and illusionist, who made a very nervous bunny suddenly appear in an empty cage, and made you laugh at his frequent ad libs in this Piccolo Spoleto production.

Anderson, who lives in Elloree, about 70 miles up the road from Charleston, attracted friends and neighbors and family. At intermission they told of how the show’s star had made their town proud when he started singing as a child.

Although the largely down-home production failed to match the advance publicity promising ‘Las Vegas illusions,’ Anderson did succeed in executing several pretty astonishing magic tricks, especially when he made Allison West, one of his assistants, levitate and then disappear into a puff of smoke.

Inspired by the great master magician Houdini, he also placed another assistant Morgan Fanning, 16, in a box and made her disappear and re-appear. However, it would be best if the young magician cut back on the rope tricks, which were far too complex.

Striking a sort of Christian-oriented Vegas-style tone, Anderson filled the theater with his well-trained singing voice. He jump-started the show with a rendition of Jerry Lee Lewis’ ‘Great Balls of Fire,’ which included audience participation.

Finally, he left the audience with some sound advice: ‘There is magic all around you every day, if only you open your eyes to see it.’

The show will be repeated on Saturday.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 11th, 2010 at 9:28 pm and is filed under 2010, Piccolo Fringe, web-first reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.