‘Super Heroes’ Who Have a Magic Touch

Spiderman and Superman don’t make any appearances in “Larry Wilson’s Super Heroes” at Magicopolis’ Abracadabra Theatre. Wilson’s superheroes are people with powers to amaze and amuse in this funny, sometimes corny, family-oriented magic show with a rotating cast.

Some of the humor is transparent, but what do you expect from a man clad in a white tuxedo and white athletic shoes (Wilson) whose sidekicks are “The Flying Cavettis” (Elisha Shapiro and Jim Hull), two-thirds of the world’s worst acrobatic team?

On opening night, superhero Woody Pittman, a “hopeful soul,” is a supposedly amateur magician in a baggy black tux whose magic seems to work by chance. With a goofy, tremulous smile and eyes slightly glazed from faux stage fright, Pittman draws on audience sympathy for the underdog as he performs tricks that sometimes seem to surprise even him.

Frenetically pacing the stage in a black bowling shirt and jeans, Chip Lowell is an “anti-gravitator” who juggles some dangerous-looking weapons and other objects between his feverish and hilarious exchanges with audience members.

There’s plenty of opportunity for audience participation. Pittman and Wilson are particularly adept at ad-lib exchanges. The superheroes perform newspaper, card and rope tricks, use magic rings and make a woman float, but it’s the hokey humor and ad-libs with the audience that makes this show a hoot.

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* “Larry Wilson’s Super Heroes,” Magicopolis, 1418 4th St., Santa Monica. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Ends Jan. 10. $20. (310) 451-2241. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.