Rafael Benatar Live

[Robert Kane]

This weekend at Gerry Griffen's California Magic Theatre in Martinez, CA I had the opportunity to watch the formal close up presentation of Rafael Benatar.

Rafael was simply awesome and his magic was...well...very magical.

I was especially gratified to see him performing a number of fine effects recently published in the March issue of Genii.

For example, his first effect was "The Favorite Cards of My Friends," which was a great opener (See pp 66-67).

Later, he received gasps of astonishment and much applause for his effect "Fax" (See pp 64-65). I have made a mental note to learn both of these wonderful card effects and you should too.

His effect called "Once in a Hundred Years" is a terrific ace revelation with the nice added touch of audience involment (See pp 67 and 80. Pleasant and fun audience involvement is a hallmark of Rafael's act.

Rafael's cups & balls performance was also excellent and delighted the audience.

Later in the evening, Rafael also demonstrated his work on tabling double cards or as he calls it "The Nail and Edge Principle." I was blown away by Rafael's ability to casually throw a double to the table and the cards stayed together. Friggin' weird! It's all about air, body movement, bending of the card, etc. Wow is all I could think.

I guess there is nothing like seeing seeing the pages of Genii come alive before your eyes to better appreciate the value of Mr. Kaufman's publication and to also inspire one to harder work and better magic. :)

[Nick Maggio]

Rafael wowed us recently in Pennsylvania. He did his session at Marc DeSuza's beautiful audio/ video theatre in his home.

His version of Predicto was a favorite...spectator picks 6 numbers from 1 to 100. A lottery ticket with "scratch and see" boxes is produced. When all the numbers are scratched with a coin, they match the randomly picked numbers from the spectator. This is not a card trick, but Rafael's presentation dropped some jaws.

Nick Maggio