If a magician is to be judged by the magic he does, the Pop Magician's Broadway debut on Sunday night has been an unwavering success. The numerous criticisms that have appeared in the general media and in specialized magazines praise his illusions, especially the most apparently simple ones, such as the letters that he constantly takes out of his mouth or the sports shoe that disappears again and again from his own foot in front of the public. to reappear in an unlikely place. The New York Times titles their review "An ordinary guy with a magical touch" and says he levitates and teleports -- "his teleportation tricks are probably the best," they note, "and when the magician or wizard appears in the blink of an eye in a display case on the opposite side of the stage produces a dizzying sense of wonder" - but it's the simple tricks with cards and balls that are the most mind-blowing. "Who needs a helicopter when you can do magic like that?" concludes the review of the great New York newspaper, referring to the previous appearance of that device on the scene.
An amused criticism that he points out that he is "the conjurer you could take home and present to your mother", although he also points out that although the show follows the current trend of inscribing the tricks in a larger story, in this case that of a boy from a poor neighborhood who dreams of being a magician and achieving the impossible, "he doesn't really share much of himself" and although "he says that his arrival on Broadway culminates his dreams", "there is little narrative there, just the feeling of a dexterous performer ticking another box on the list of things to 'Become an international sensation'".
It is the most common shade of criticism that has appeared on the magician's debut at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, next to Times Square. Time Out magazine gives him four out of five stars and calls his tricks "stunning." He notes that he is "especially good at teleportation" - "he and his assistants are in a constant state of flux, now you see them, now you don't, now you see them somewhere else" - and if the public can attend before it concludes functions on the 27th "will have entertainment". And he points out that he "puts clever twists on the most common magical routines" and that Broadway had not had magic since before the pandemic: "For 75 delicious minutes you can feel a little teleported yourself."
The Daily Beast is most critical not of Antonio Díaz's "impeccable" magic but of the theatrical presentation, which it sees as "unbalanced". "Díaz is impressively in charge of his tricks but not of the show as a show." Some tricks that he describes as "electrifying" and says that "it is a mystery" how the magician and his assistants go from one showcase to another in a second. "Whatever it is, it's fabulous," he admits. But he sees the intertwining of tricks through videos that are a "biography-advert for Díaz" as "heavy". "The clever wishful thinking gets a bit lost with loosely intertwined bits of self-empowerment, self-promotion, and blatant publicity," he criticizes. "In a way gratifying to see an artist proud and honest about what the show is really about: selling a brand." "As gratifyingly mystifying and visually arresting as it sometimes is, the show seems very much in service of building the magician's brand." As with the best of his incredible illusions, a little less show-and-tell would do wonders," he concludes. The New York Stage Review also gives the show four out of five stars, summing it up as "conquering Broadway."
