A friendly piece of advice: If you’re ever invited to play poker with Helder Guimarães and Derek DelGaudio . . . pass.
In the hands of these sleight-of-hand magicians, a simple deck of cards morphs into an infinite series of wonders. Their show, which just opened here after a hit run in Los Angeles, is titled “Nothing To Hide.” But, of course, these talented performers have everything to hide.
Directed by the peripatetic Neil Patrick Harris — who magically fit this in between awards shows, a TV series and the upcoming revival of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” — this intimate show has few new tricks up its sleeve. After all, there are only so many ways in which you can manipulate cards, pick the right one out of a deck or make them appear and disappear.
But DelGaudio and Guimarães — who refer to themselves, respectively, as a “human Bob’s Big Boy” and a “Portuguese muppet” — deliver even the more familiar tropes in fresh new ways, often channeling Harris’ droll sense of humor in their witty asides.
The evening begins with a beautifully staged segment: Seated at a small table, the magicians take each other on in a duel in which they pluck out cards in sequential order, slapping a chess clock at the end of each turn with the deadpan aplomb of a silent-movie routine.
Naturally, there’s plenty of audience participation, with some comic fuming on the part of the performers when the crowd is slow to respond.
“We know how difficult it is to applaud,” they chided at one point, “especially when you have your mind blown out of your ass.”
Some of the illusions are too elaborate for their own good, as when a volunteer selects a card that’s then locked in a cigar box. He’s told to hide it somewhere outside the theater. By the time he returns and is presented with an identical box containing the exact same card, we’ve long stopped caring.
Most of the routines are more impressive, particularly one that begins with the audience randomly choosing cards. The duo then pulls out a month-old Village Voice cover story about themselves and — tada! — it contains references to the exact same cards.
Another trick involves Dave Spafford’s clever set, with its rows and rows of shelves filled with hundreds of small bottles, each containing a deck of cards. A volunteer shouts the name of a card and then selects a bottle. When the magicians shatter it with a hammer, the deck inside contains that same card facing up.