Watkins entrances PUC

Magic has always been a form of entertainment that can sink or swim when it comes to audience reactions. Either the magician gets a cooperative audience and successfully takes them on a journey through a world of illusions and mind-defying tricks, or the act simply falls flat and leaves the audience bored. Actor and professional award-winning magician Dennis Watkins proved that he is not just a magician but an entertainer that will keep the audience on their toes on Sept. 28 in Alumni Hall.

Tianna Harrison, daughter of PUC Writing Center Coordinator Janine Harrison, happily performs a ring trick with Dennis Watkins.

 Lots of PUC students, children and members of the community packed into Alumni Hall to witness a true magician at work. Watkins immediately immerses his audience in the show by picking a few lucky people from the crowd to participate in a current trick and one that would be performed later. By automatically attaching the crowd to his tricks, he quickly builds a rapport with the audience. His comedic bits and friendly demeanor add to the warm stage presence he gives off. Since there were so many children in the crowd, he often played off of their antics, whether it was them trying to ruin his tricks or if they were being too disruptive. He did it in a manner that was funny, but did not belittle or scold them. Eventually, Watkins moved to his more radical tricks, which kept the crowd exclaiming and giving applause all night. When Tory Shrum, a freshmen nursing major, was asked what her favorite trick was she replied, “I can’t pick just one, but I liked the one with the girl’s head!” This trick involved participation from the audience to work successfully.

Watkins called an audience member to the stage, and it just happened to be a 7 year-old girl. As she approached the stage he told her to sit in a chair facing the audience and not to move an inch. He pulled out a hypnotizing wheel and started to spin it. “Stare directly into the middle of the middle,” he proclaimed to the crowd, “do not avert your eyes. Keep focused in the middle even if it feels like you are being pulled into a tunnel.” He counted down from five and told the audience to then look at the girl’s head. The outcome caused most audience members to gasp and immediately break out into applause. “I have never seen anything like this before,” Patrice McBee, sophomore accounting major, said. McBee’s favorite trick performed was the mind-reading, or blindfold trick that Watkins performed. Again, Watkins pulled from the audience for this mind-blowing illusion. He called a man and woman to the stage and proceeded to have them help him set up the act. He placed two half-dollar coins on pieces of duct tape and placed them over both eyes. He then applied more duct tape around his eyes, a blindfold and another piece of duct tape on top of the blindfold. Still blindfolded he told the male helper to grab three personal items from people in the crowd. After receiving the items, he told the man to hand them to the woman, behind his back, and then told the woman to hold the object in front of his hand, not allowing him to ever touch the item. The three items were a cell phone, a compact and a wristband. Not only did he guess every single one, he described them as if he did not even have the blindfold on.

 Simply amazing would be an understatement of Watkins’s performance. Interactive showcasing would be a closer statement but still not right enough. As soon as he began to talk, Watkins threw his personality and skill out to the audience. He was able to energize the kids and have the adults believing in magic again.
 On October 12th at 8 p.m., mentalist Christopher Carter will be attempting to read minds in Alumni Hall.