Shin Lim is surely one of the United States Playing Card Company’s most favored customers. The close-magic master has small, sealed packets with four Bicycle brand cards affixed to every seat at his Limitless residency inside the Mirage Theatre. Each packet is printed with the instructions “PLEASE DO NOT OPEN UNTIL SHIN LIM TELLS YOU.”
Tempting as it is, and it can’t be stressed enough, do not open the package until Shim Lin tells you. He will tell you after his colleague, Colin Cloud, appears onstage and demonstrates his mastery of the art of mentalism for the first of several times. He’s 100 percent accurate at guessing birthdays during a Saturday-night show in September and draws on portrait-making skills to illustrate thoughts of audience members before they think them.
Brash and extroverted, Cloud’s stage style both complements and contrasts with Lim’s. Both have a predilection for slim tailoring, but Lim is more ethereal and enigmatic than his performing partner. His aura is enhanced by the romantic ambience of Sting’s 1993 song “Shape of My Heart,” which serves as the theme to an early show segment of four-suited sleight-of-hand.
A two-time winner of America’s Got Talent, Lim has an approach to card manipulation that almost looks like real-time, real-life video editing. With his sleeves well clear of his wrists, Lim make cards appear and disappear with a hyperkinetic flourish. It’s a skill not unique to Lim but perhaps affected by 10,000 hours of piano practice that resulted in carpal-tunnel syndrome.
Doctor-ordered rest gave Lim a chance to focus on cardistry. Magic began to pull ahead of becoming a concert pianist as a life goal, although the piano would eventually play a part in his act physically as well as narratively. A runner-up placing at a triannual competition held by the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques only fueled Lim’s ambitions. He competed again and placed first.
Now he may have the fastest hands of any magician on the Strip. Close magic is his specialty. Lim is of a generation that grew up with the technology available to him. Rather than experiment with how to make close magic work on massive monitors, he seems to have conceived of his tricks with large-scale video viewing in mind.
His approach works seamlessly with biographical elements and creates a cohesive thread throughout the show, his performing presence distinguished by a cascade of hair that nearly falls over his eyes. Alternating stage-time with wisecracking Cloud keeps the proceedings moving at a brisk pace. The two will cross paths by the conclusion in an unpredictable way but work mainly with audience members for the duration of the show.
As good as Cloud is, no one has figured out how to involve the entire audience in participating the way Lim does with the sealed packet trick. And to reinforce the trick’s effectiveness It can’t be stressed enough: Do not open the packet until Shin Lim tells you.
The Mirage, 5+. 800.963.9634
Click here for your free subscription to the weekly digital edition of Las Vegas Magazine, your guide to everything to do, hear, see and experience in Southern Nevada. In addition to the latest edition emailed to every week, you’ll find plenty of great, money-saving offers from some of the most exciting attractions, restaurants, properties and more! And Las Vegas Magazine is full of informative content such as restaurants to visit, cocktails to sip and attractions to enjoy.
