Free Press
Teresa MALLAM/Free Press Kristine Hoeg shows the position she found herself in when she awoke on stage at Vanier Hall Thursday under the ?spell? of the Amazing Kreskin.
By Teresa Mallam
Free Press
Feb 28 2007
They don?t call him the ?Amazing? Kreskin for nothing. Even those who began the two-hour journey with him Thursday night as skeptics, had to admit by the evening?s end, the world-famous mentalist can do things that defy logic and take imagination.
There were lots of highlights but finding his pay cheque in Vanier Hall ? it was hidden down the white sock of a young woman in the audience ? drew the most gasps of amazement. It?s a feat that Kreskin has performed some 6,000 times and missed only eight or nine times. Fortunately, his success meant not having to forfeit his fee in Prince George and he may just have gained a few new fans.
The show moves a little slowly at first, with Kreskin delivering his highly polished, tried but true routine, including anecdotes about his career spanning several decades (he?s now in his 70s) and name dropping. He talks about his record number of appearance with Johnny Carson, his talks on Larry King Live and walks with Regis. He jokes about how family members long ago stopped wrapping his Christmas gifts. It?s all very entertaining but if you grew up with Kreskin, as many in the audience had, you know all that stuff.
Jaclyn Sawtell, a receptionist for the Free Press said her own skepticism turned to awe when she was up on stage with Kreskin, as one of his subjects.
?I was so nervous. He asked us to put out our hands, then he asked us to close our eyes and told us we would not be able to open them,? she said. ?It really felt like my eyelids were glued shut. I absolutely could not open them. I was skeptical at first, but there is no explaining how he could do that.?
Sawtell made the first couple of ?Kreskin cuts? but she had to leave the stage when she failed to fall asleep at his suggestion. Kristine Hoeg shared the same experiences but she had no problem, apparently, going into a sleep-like ?trance.? She?s also found new notoriety in the community as one heck of a great Kreskin subject.
?People have been coming up to me since the show saying, ?aren?t you the girl ... and I just say yes.? It?s kind of funny. I?ve been hearing from everybody that I just flopped right over when he put us to sleep on stage. But I don?t remember that. I just remember waking up. It was quite a surprise.?
Hoeg and Sawtell were just two of several audience members invited to spend time with Kreskin on stage.
For years, Kreskin has made it known on his TV and live appearances that he considers himself a mentalist, not a mind-reader, a psychic or a soothsayer. He credits his intuition. Well, whatever it is, he did find the right card (the eight of diamonds) and others from a full deck. He did ?read? written life?s experiences from the audience. He did astound the crowd when subjects from the community held their noses to avoid a foul smell, suggested by Kreskin but of course didn?t exist, as he played Old Man River on the piano (Kreskin is also a concert pianist).
But perhaps his best feat of the evening was his ability to simply get people ? perfect strangers from the community ? to share their thoughts, laughs and yes, share the amazement of his act.
Kreskin is a great showman, a remarkable performer who is almost an anachronism in this age of high tech gadgets and computer-made slight of hand where special effects are available at the touch of a mouse. The fact that he had an enthusiastic crowd of 500 people at Vanier Hall up on their feet in applause and wonderment says it all. It really doesn?t matter how he accomplished it.
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