Steve Dacri sits down with fellow magician, Hans Klok.

The all new Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino, formerly the Aladdin, has at least four magicians playing in its various showrooms, but the one that everyone is looking at most closely is the Dutch magician, Hans Klok, an unknown (in the US) performer who is appearing in a monster showroom, the Theatre for the Performing Arts, which is known primarily as a venue for music acts. It holds 7,000 people, but for this production, called "The Beauty of Magic", black curtains scale the theatre down to around 2,000 seats.

A few days after the official opening of the show, Hans invited me to visit him for a sit down conversation in his dressing room, perched high about the stage.

The dressing room is sparsely decorated, mainly it holds all of the clothes that Hans wears in his show and not much else. Not the lavish space that Lance Burton has, but spacious and comfortable.

SD: Is this your first time in Las Vegas?

HK: Oh, no. I have been here many times, not as a performer, but because some of the best illusion and prop builders are here. I have had many props built here.

SD: How do you like Vegas?

HK: I love it. It's the high point in the world of entertainment. I always dreamed of playing here. And now, here I am.

SD: Talk about this theatre, how do you like it?

HK: I love this theatre. It is perfect, big stage, lots of room, great sight lines, which as you know, magic needs good sight lines. The angles are very good. The people are close, yet not too close. I want to be here for a very long time.

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SD: Does it bother you that there are so many seats to fill?

HK: Not really. I will fill them, but not right away. It takes time to build up an audience.

SD: And you have the support of Robert Earle, right?

HK: Oh yes, Robert Earle is very supportive. He really wants to see this show work. Hehas been helpful in so many ways.

SD: What happened to Carmine Electra? Lots of advertising, billboards with the two of you, and before the show even opens, she's gone.

HK: Well, uh, Carmine Electra was not right for the show.

SD: That's a polite answer. Is it true you two did not get along?

HK: Yes, we had many disagreements.

SD: Is it true she didn't like getting into the role of what we call in magic, a "box jumper"?

HK: She didn't...let's just say she had a problem with some of the illusions, and she did not like all the work she had to do, hiding in little small spaces.

SD: As you recall, I was originally scheduled to come over here for this interview on the day everything exploded with her. I heard there was a huge argument.

HK: She did not fit with the show. We did not get along.

SD: And how did you go from Electra to Pamela Anderson? Was it a requirement that your assistant had to come from "Baywatch"?

HK: Robert Earle made some calls. He knows everybody in Hollywood. When he made the deal, he had a press conference, and he said, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas...but not always. We lost our celebrity lady, but we have someone even bigger now."

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SD: Much bigger. Did you have to adjust any of the props so she could fit inside?

HK: Well, yes.

SD: And now, two blonds share the stage. How do you two get along?

HK: We get along very well. She's great fun, and so easy to work with. She will try anything, she is not afraid, and she is a professional in every way. You would think that with all of her celebrity status, she would be hard to handle, but that is not the case. She is always on time, she learns her lines, and she is very, very funny.

SD: Do you share hair products?

HK: No.

SD: So, you like working with her?

HK: Electra was afraid of some of thw stage work, and the boxes, but Pamela is willing to do anything.

SD: You didn't seem to miss a beat, really, one week Electra is gone, and about a week later, Pamela is in. Was she just sitting around, waiting for this to happen?

HK: She says she always wanted to do some Las Vegas show, maybe as a showgirl. So, when we asked her, she quickly said yes. As a matter of fact, when we called her, she was in Germany, we asked her to be a magician's assistant, she said yes immediately and then was here a few days later, ready to go to work.

SD: Does she have a huge staff of people around her all the time?

HK: No, she doesn't. You'd think that someone like her, with being so famous all over the world, that she would be difficult, and have all these people hanging around her. She is not that way. She is always on time, she works hard, she doesn't have staff of people with her, and after we finish rehearsal, she doesn't go out and party, she is saving her energy.

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SD: That's not what I've heard.

HK: (Laughs) Well, that's not true what I just said. We have been going out together sometimes and drinking and getting crazy.

SD: That's what I figured.

HK: Yes, you see, she's a wild and crazy party animal, just like I am. We get along great. And she is one of the nicest person's I ever met. She is a lot like Bridget Bardot, really. Very famous, yet very, very sweet. But we are definitely party animals. She says I am like her evil twin.

SD: So, you've been showing her the sights of Las Vegas?

HK: She showing me. She knows the town better than me, so she is always ready to go out and party.

SD: And people react to her when they see her, don't they?

HK: Oh yes, they all recognize her, and she is fine with that.

SD: She loves it, are you kidding?

HK: She does, yes. We were in a club the other night, and everyone just stares at her, and this guy comes up to us and he says, "Are you Pamela Anderson?" And she smiles and says, "yes, I am". And then security takes the guy out, makes him disappear, and she says to me, "that was a great magic trick."

SD: And after a wild night of partying, she is back onstage for rehearsal the next day?

HK: Oh, yes. She likes to party, but she is also taking her work very seriously, she is a real professional. I like her in the show a lot.

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SD: Even by Vegas standards, this is a huge production. You have 16 dancers, right?

HK: Yes, and 35 people working backstage. It is a very expensive production.

SD: And a lot of equipment. This is a monster of a production, isn't it?

HK: Yes, a lot of stuff.

SD: My whole act fit into a briefcase. Are you jealous?

HK: Well, it would be nice to have a small case of props, but this show is so big.

SD: David Copperfield is a friend of mine, and one time, while I was performing over at Caesars Magical Empire, he came over, and saw one of my performances, and sitting in my dressing room, he looked at my little wheel-on suitcase, its actually a carry-on bag, and he asked if I was leaving town, and I said, "No, David, this is my whole act." He said, "Don't rub it in, I hate you for that."

HK: I love close-up magic, like what you do. It is pure magic. I do the cards in my show, so we have sleight of hand as well.

SD: Yes, but you also have more boxes and props than most productions.

HK: We are the largest in Vegas, and being in one place, like this, is different from a touring show. We can do so much more because we stay in one place. I was used to doing traveling shows, I did a lot of fairs, amusement parks, and circuses. I love circus shows.

SD: Did you put this show together yourself? The routines, deciding what exactly to do?

HK: You are seeing parts of different shows all put together. Like the part near the end, its about 12 minutes of fast magic with a lot of illusions, that was my act, when I am touring in Europe and other places, so I put that in because I know it so well, I have been doing it for so long, and it is a good sequence to do near the end, it leaves a good impression. The pace is fast.

SD: Today the Las Vegas Review Journal came out and the Mike Weatherford Entertainment column reviewed your show. It wasn't pretty. What did you think of Mike's review?

HK: I heard about this bad review, but I didn't read it (note: the paper, and the review, were sitting on the table in front of us). I don't care about the bad reviews. They just don't understand. Magicians always have to do the same tricks that they always do. It takes a long time to develop these tricks, so you have to keep doing them. When you go see a famous singer, they always sing their hit songs. It's what people come to hear.

HK: To say that I just do what all the other magicians do is not true. Sure, I do the classics, magic tricks that you may have seen before, but I do them in my own style. I am different. That is why I am working on the Las Vegas Strip.

SD: Buy certainly you can understand that people are expecting this show to be something special and different, not the same thing that has been presented again and again. After all, the production budget is what, $8 million?

HK: I think so, yes. There are a lot of costs, to build these sets and props, and the illusions, and transporting everything to Las Vegas. DO you know that when they have shows here, music shows come here on weekends, we have to pack up our entire show and truck it out of here? Then we bring it back and reload again from the start. It is very expensive to do this. Very difficult.

Our show is different that the others in this town. We added a story, which is very personal to me, it is about my life story, with the little boy who wants to grow up and be a magician. We made it different, and then we had Bruce Villanch come in and write all the lines for the show, so it is more than just another magic show with tricks you have seen before.

SD: I thought you didn't read Weatherford's review.

HK: No, I didn't. Some people told me about it. But we made it different, and very theatrical, when you put all the different elements together, you have a different show, even though some of it you see before. It's a very good show, and for families, too. Even if you do not like magic, if you come to this show, you will have a good time.

SD: So, you disagree with the review?

HK: I don't care what they write. It doesn't matter. I am very happy with the results of putting all of these parts of the show together, I think it is a very good show. I am happy with it.

SD: A show this big requires a lot of fine tuning. How long have you had to rehearse this show?

HK: Seven weeks.

SD: Is the show that I saw (and the reviewer saw) the same show you planned to do from the beginning, or has it changed once you arrived here, as things often do?

HK: The show was originally going to be 2 hours, with an intermission. We shortened it, took some illusions out, to make it faster paced, and we added new things that we were not planning to do at first, like the guillotine number that David Mendoza built for us, and we had to make room for the star to do her routines. So, after adding everything from the old show, and the new illusions and dance numbers and original music, it changed a lot from the first plan.

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SD: Let me see if I understand completely, you originally had a touring show that you have done for a long time, and you took bits from that show and combined it with new illusions and other things, like Pamela Anderson, and came up with this new show that you call "The Beauty of Magic"?

HK: Yes, we were doing a touring show all along, we had a big investor who said, "lets build the largest touring magic show and tour all over Europe with it". So that is what we did, but before we got to complete that show, we never took it out, he called me and said there was an opportunity to go to Las Vegas, in this theatre, and so I said, "Let's go". Because this was always my dream.

SD: So this is basically the touring show, with some enhancements added?

HK: That's right. This is mostly the touring show parts and new illusions and other parts added.

SD: Maybe that's why there seems to be a lot of repetitive elements in it.

HK: Like I said, and you know this, magicians always do the same things. But I have put so many bigger and original things into this show, it is really the best magic show in Las Vegas. No other magician in this town does the kind of production that I do.

SD: That's a bold statement. Have you seen every other magic show in town?

HK: Most of them.

SD: What did you think of Steve Wyrick's show, your neighbor down the hallway here?

HK: It's okay. My show is much bigger. When you talk about productions, my show is flashier than all the other magicians.

SD: How about Lance?

HK: I have not yet seen Lance.

SD: Then, how can you say your show is better?

HK: My show is different that other magicians. It is my story, my creation.

SD: You certainly have more dancers than all the other magic shows.

HK: Yes, and the quality of our people is great. We hired the best dancers, we auditioned dancers all over the world to find only the best.

SD: Putting aside the size of the production and the number of dancers, what makes Hans Klok special?

HK: I am not a great magician, but I have a great style, my energy is more exciting that all of my colleagues here in Las Vegas, most of whom I admire, but I am very different from all of them. We eliminated a lot of the talking parts, because my English is not so good, and we added a lot of action, more than any other magic show. It is not easy to do my show, I don't think anyone else could do that. It requires a lot of energy and stamina. There is a lot of sweat in my show.

SD: There certainly is a lot to it, more than meets the eye.

HK: That's right. I think it is a cool show. I like it a lot. I am proud of it. There is a place for all of us here.

SD: How did you expect that the magic community would take to this show?

HK: I didn't really care. I like a lot of magicians. And I don't like a lot of magicians. I don't particularly care to hang around with magicians, they can be mean, you know? It's not the same with singers, for instance. Diana Ross respects Tina Turner, and Tina Turner respects Whitney Houston, they work together a lot, and they use the same musicians and stuff like that. But magicians, we are very secret, its all about secrets, so we keep things to ourselves.

And magicians, many times they are good magicians, but they don't have a clue about show business. It's so much more than just the tricks. There is a lot more to it than that. I am trying to reach a huge number of people with magic, I am an ambassador for magic. But a lot of magicians don't see that the same way.

I am very respected in my own country, but here, it is not the same.

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SD: That's why you loaded the deck with a big star like Pamela Anderson.

HK: People say, this show has a celebrity and a star in it. I am the celebrity and Pamela is the star.

SD: Magicians are not sure if you are a real celebrity here, you have to agree.

HK: Well, Las Vegas is very International, and I suppose magicians would say that they had 38 years of watching these two Germans do magic, now here comes Hans Klok from Amsterdam.

Magicians are very jealous of me. They think I am just lucky. I worked very hard to get here. And I am going to be here for a very long time.

I may not do a lot of original magic, but I have the skills that I bring to the tricks, and that makes me original.

SD: Are you interested in doing magic that nobody has seen before?

HK: I am not really into coming up with new tricks all the time, some people do that, I don't. That is really not my thing. I am really a performer, thats what makes me different. I am like the singer that sings other people's songs, and does them well.

SD: You don't really care what the magicians may think of you, then, do you?

HK: In the end, guys, I am the one playing on the Las Vegas Strip. Not them. And even when you sometimes get the bad review like I did in the paper today, the tourists don't read that stuff, and the local people who read it, they don't come to see your show anyway, so who cares about that?

SD: ANd what about what the audience thinks? That's critical, right?

HK: I get a standing ovation almost every night, so the show must be great.

And with that, we said our good-byes, walked down to the front of the stage and took the photo (above) together.

Read my review of the show here.

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