Kreskin: Timelessly, Well, Amazing

The Amazing Kreskin, who wowed the Wolf Trap crowd with his bag of tricks. (Wolf Trap)

If someone you didn't know suddenly blurted out your birth date and the city you were thinking of at the moment, you'd say, "Amazing." It's the first word that comes to mind, and appropriately so.

The Amazing Kreskin lived up to his moniker time and again Saturday night at the Barns of Wolf Trap, performing the same shtick he's been doing since before Joey Bishop had his own TV show. And Steve Allen. And especially Johnny Carson, who gave Kreskin the Amazing tag.

Kreskin referenced each of those TV hosts in his two-hour show, a performance that was as much a showcase for the boundless energy of the 71-year-old as it was for his stunning feats.

Skeptics can scoff, and they do, about how the mentalist formerly known as George Kresge manages to do it, but Kreskin is one of the last tangible links to theatrical artistry before television (and even radio), and to watch him work the stage is to step back to a time of intellectual innocence. You just have to say, "Oh, why not?" and give in.

With a grin as big as his oversize glasses, Kreskin involved the entire audience by keeping the house lights on for the duration. He nailed a prediction trick -- trick's not the right word, but what else to call it? -- in which an audience member's given name, numbers and city were written on a piece of paper, placed in an envelope in an envelope in an envelope. He pulled off a few cool card effects, he completed a guy's phone number without mistake, he found his paycheck -- hidden by audience members in the balcony -- and he put two dozen volunteers to sleep by playing "Aura Lee" on the piano before subjecting them to a range of imagined temperature variations in the room.

Think what you like -- and Kreskin will know what you're thinking -- but he was amazing.

-- Buzz McClain