Going Mental

Don't try this on YouTube, kids.

Irish magician Keith Barry says people have paid a price for lack of originality when they tried to copy one of his signature stunts, a variation of the classic shell game.

In Barry's version -- currently on display at the Planet Hollywood Resort -- an audience recruit fervently hopes the magician remembers which of four Styrofoam cups conceals a sharp memo spike, before he slams both their hands down upon it.

Search the "Magic gone wrong" clips, and "You'll see guys spiking their hand, spiking the spectators' hands," Barry says. (He's right. It doesn't take long to find them.) "They think they know how it's done, but they don't really."

The magician who has his sites on full-time residency here doesn't do the usual illusions. Instead, the multihyphenate act combines magic, hypnosis and mind-reading. The common bond is a visceral sense of reality.

On opening night, Barry found a surgeon in his audience to monitor a stunt where he claims to stop his heart. When the doc could no longer feel anything in Barry's wrist, he went straight for the chest and seemed authentically perplexed.

Barry was fine with the unexpected move. "I love that things change every night. It's not like an illusionist where you hit your mark every night." The only other person who went for the heart was a combat medic; those guys don't mess around looking for a wrist pulse.

"I love skeptics coming onstage and converting them," says the 32-year-old, who has been given a five-week showcase by Base Entertainment, sharing the theater with "Stomp Out Loud." "The most important thing is to really try and fool people badly, but make it entertaining along the way."

Base is betting the time is right to break Barry big on the Strip. He shares management with U2 and is familiar on U.K. television, but his U.S. exposure has been limited to a few talk show appearances and the MTV special "Brainwashed."

Barry has the lilting accent and the endearing casual profanity that Americans love in the Irish. But he doesn't work overtime on the jokes.

"Make it too much about the comedy and they might laugh, but they're not fooled," he says. "I'm telling you, people don't realize how difficult it is to do both. I'm not trying to be funny, I'm trying to create a funny show but not let the laughter overpower the magic."

He also can have the opposite problem. Some people take the mentalism part of the act too seriously. "I'm as accurate as a psychic but I'm not a psychic," he says. "They have no morals at all, those people. Unfortunately they prey on the vulnerable. They're good at what they do, that's the problem."

He swears by the hypnotism, however. Barry says he was so unprepared for the success of his first "instant induction" that he "had to catch a guy by his hair before his face slammed down" on the ground.

Growing up in Waterford, Ireland, Barry says it took time to progress beyond kit magic. "In Ireland it's very difficult, because there aren't too many magicians and no magic shops at all."

He and his wife, Mairead, were teenage sweethearts. When both were in college, he started reading her psychology books to see how he could apply techniques such as neuro-linguistic programming to his act.

Barry may be the rare magician to hold a chemistry degree. When he got out of college in 1998, he spent a couple of years in a cosmetic science lab. "I used to invent women's makeup, basically."

But the job didn't excite him and he went pro as an entertainer in 2000. He sold his first ticket to a stage show in his hometown five years ago, after his manager threw down the challenge to get a show together in three weeks.

Barry hopes the Planet Hollywood showcase will convince a producer to make a modest investment in him. "Just a couple of hundred grand," he says. "It doesn't need a lot of money. A little bit of budget can go a long way."

He can envision a commute from the suburbs and staying in one place with his wife and nearly 3-month-old boy. He might even get a chance to master poker, something that's been denied him so far.

"Nobody will play me," he says.

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