Flashy host, Fuel Girls help ‘Inferno’ sizzle
THEY could have called this show, “Forget It: Fire!” “Inferno” knows what it is. The new production that opened Thursday at the Paris Theater is indeed flaming spectacular. The pitch meeting for this show had to have been: “Imagine a stage show with a lot of magic and acrobats. Now set everything on fire!”
New Strip headliner Joseph Labero, a Swedish magician of great merit, ignites the action with his formidable talents. He has won many top honors in the magic industry, including the prestigious Merlin Award, which has also been given to Siegfried &Roy , Penn & Teller, David Copperfield and Criss Angel.
Labero dresses in black leather, top to bottom, as if he were the leader of a magicians’ biker gang. He easily bounds across the stage, frequently punching the air to punctuate his scripted delivery. Often, flames leap from the back of the stage as the magician fires his fist skyward, and somehow his eyes even flash along with the pyro. He has some sort of tricked-out contact lenses or a Lasik procedure created especially for the stage.
Labero could well drop the “Joseph” and just use his surname as his moniker. He has a certain star quality — a star that would be in flames — and performs many impressive, if familiar, magic acts during the 90-minute showcase.
He repeatedly and magically pours the contents of a giant gas can into a large tub, the can appearing to refill onstage during the show’s many acts. He matches a playing card picked by an audience member, producing that card from a block of ice — the show’s moment where ice replaces fire as the show’s primary stage effect.
Labero is a guy you really do like spending time with — a quality crucial to the appeal of any headlining magician. “We’re going to have some fire TONIGHT!” he calls out, eyes flashing, as the crowd shouts back, “Yeaaaah!”
The fair-haired Labero is backed effectively by the
U.K. performance team
Fuel Girls, whose members swing through dance and performance-art numbers with flaming wands, swords, whips, aerial rings and even a flaming cube that might have been left over from “Jubilee.” This is the hotly anticipated female quartet who toured with Fall Out Boy and is an ideal fit for Labero’s fiery showmanship.
We could use more of the Fuel Girls, actually. They’re a blast. Bring those ladies into the audience and really heat the place up. They’re also sexy, clad scantily in flaming red and black, in a way that makes the show and its 9:30 p.m. starting time a bit outside the “family friendly” zone.
The show’s sidekick is known as Animal, who looks like Carrot Top in the Topper’s scrawnier, late-1990s physique. Animal occasionally behaves as a feline and is Labero’s go-fer during the show. Toss a match at Animal, and he jumps. Animal lugs many of the show’s props onstate and off, dancing to the showman’s every command.
“Inferno” is the show you walk out of thinking, “What else can we set aflame?” I observed the concession stand at the theater entrance — let’s turn the popcorn buckets into little fire pits. Douse the red-velvet ropes with butane and pass the Bic. Flush a toilet — Whoosh! Fire! Even later, at Martorano’s Italian restaurant, when I ran into my friend Sally Dewhurst and members of the show’s creative team, I said, “We should have fire ringing this entire restaurant!”
“Stop!” she said.
Hey, we’ve just started.
This show satisfies the entertainment adage that you should leave the audience wanting more. We want more fire. And at the Paris Theater, “Inferno” is a perfect (wait for it) match (boom!).
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@ reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @ Johnnykats1 on Instagram. As of 9 p.m. Tuesday:
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