Criss Angel to mystify crowds at Foxwoods all weekend

November 13, 2014 11:00 pm • Last Updated: November 13, 2014 4:17 pm

By Rick Koster
Day Arts/Features writer

Magician Criss Angel

Criss Angel's shoulder hurts. Probably always will.

That's what happens when you're wrapped in a straitjacket whilst suspended upside down 75 feet in the air and, in your attempts for liberation, the muscle from your right bicep rips and peels like skin from a banana.

Ouch.

This happened last year in Times Square when Angel first attempted his version of what is known in the magic biz as the Harry Houdini Death Escape. The Angel recipe ups Houdini's ante by throwing into the mix a 50-pound weight attached to the magician's neck by a hangman's noose.

That afternoon, hanging high in the Manhattan sky, Angel - one of the greatest and most popular illusionists of all time - simply ignored the injury, completed the escape and, after major surgery and months of rehab, is back in action blowing minds all over the globe.

Happily, Angel, also known as the MINDFREAK, has spent most of this week blowing minds in southeastern Connecticut.

On Tuesday, he replicated the aforementioned straitjacket/dangling/noose trick outside the Grand Pequot Tower at Foxwoods Resort Casino - with no injuries other than a bleeding lip. Then, Thursday evening, he performed two of six scheduled shows - two more tonight and two Saturday in the casino's Fox Theater - that comprise his first-ever presentations of a new production called MINDFREAK LIVE!

It's a huge coup for the Foxwoods folks inasmuch as, for the past six years (Times Square aside), all of Angel's shows have taken place at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. But Angel has a long relationship with Felix Rappaport, Foxwoods' chief operating officer, and the two arranged to have the MINDFREAK LIVE! spectaculars debut here. While all six performances are sold out, Angel will return in January to do several more shows at Foxwoods.

Last week, prior to the Harry Houdini Death Escape, Angel answered five questions by phone about his impending visit to Connecticut and, of course, All Things Sorcery.

Why were you drawn to the Houdini stunt?

"There are a couple of things. Houdini was so amazing. He died on Halloween, 1926, and his legacy as the greatest escape artist ever still shines. To me, Houdini and the concept of escape was more about metaphor than a straitjacket. I think he resonated with people because he was a short guy and an immigrant - but he came to the U.S. and became the biggest star in America. They thought, 'If Houdini can achieve that, maybe I can get a better job or get out of poverty.'

"Also, he was very savvy and aware. If he was alive today, he would look to pop culture because he WAS popular culture. Today, he would incorporate those elements into his act, and of course that's something I try to do in a big fashion. I try to connect with people and inspire them."

During the Time Square attempt, as you hurt your shoulder, did you immediately know it was bad and do you then think, "Uh-oh, I'm screwed"?

"I gotta tell you. I'm a pretty focused person in the moment. And I'm still motivated. I'm the most-watched magician on the Internet of all time but it's always in my mind how many years I walked the streets just trying to get a meeting or an audition - and just getting rejection after rejection.

"In Times Square, then, hanging upside down? I visualized all those rejections and looked down at 10,000 people below cheering me on. I was so adrenalized that, when the shoulder went, I didn't realize the severity. I thought I'd just tweaked it. In fact, I decided to wait 'til we got back to Vegas to even have an MRI. Only then did I know how bad it was. But it doesn't make a difference in the moment - all you can think of is not to disappoint the folks who've been kind enough to spend part of their day to come and support you."

Even the coin tricks and card sleight-of-hand mastery of folks on your level - and there are admittedly very few - require immense practice time and repetition to keep sharp. Then you add all sorts of big production illusions like the Luxor Light Levitation or astounding tricks you pull off in public venue. Then you add something like the Houdini escape and I wonder: do you ever have to put certain routine preparations on the back burner and, if so, does that threaten your ability to do them?

"That's an excellent question. The truth is, well, most people would look at my normal schedule and think I'm out of my mind. It's 18 hours a day, six days a week. In addition to the magic stuff, I do weights and cardio training 90 minutes a day, and that does include Sunday. I have a 60,000-square-foot facility - I call it my laboratory - and 60 people on the payroll full time. It's very difficult to get the time to work on any single thing, but a lot of these things I've worked on since I was a teenager. You master a lot of essential stuff such as breathing and meditation, so depending on what we're working on or what it might require, I'll do a crash course and go back and re-focus on something."

You perform a lot in the public arena - just showing up on the street and performing, and of course I'm thinking of the trick in which two regular citizens volunteer to pull on, respectively, the extended arms and legs of a third citizen stretched out on a park bench. And, of course, the third citizen is then ripped in half - to great shock and horror. Has anyone ever had a heart attack or lost their mind or otherwise became significantly incapacitated by any of this?

"I've had a lot of interesting, unique reactions, I'll say that. People have hit me, ran away screaming, break into tears ... Thank God no one's died. We certainly try to do our due diligence - and we live in a time when there are a lot of safety standards and practices on television. Sometimes, if we know we're going to do something provocative, we may ask someone to sign a waiver. 'Do you get scared watching horror films? Okay, then maybe this isn't for you.' But we do try to keep it fun and entertaining."

As per "Fool Us," the television show where magicians and illusionists perform tricks and stunts and try to baffle Penn & Teller: do you see things in your business that actually fools you?

"I don't want to sound conceited but I think it's pretty hard to fool us on this level; we've all created so much magic that we've seen most everything or can figure it out almost instinctively. What does astonish me is just stuff in every day life. There are so many things in nature or astronomy that we never think about or question. How does a plane fly? The universe fools me all the time."