Mesmerized

Get Mesmerized

By Caroline Fontein

Marc Savard’s show, Mesmerized, takes comedy to another level of excitement and fun through his ability to hypnotize perfect strangers and get them to do hilarious and unexpected things. Instead of him being the main attraction, his volunteers become the stars of the show, and there’s no telling what ridiculous things he will have them do once they are hypnotized.

Before the show starts, Savard does a test of the subconscious to determine if you are in the right frame of mind to be hypnotized. The he explains a few guidelines for those thinking of volunteering, the most important being you must have a fun personality.

“If I can get 25 volunteers up here this is going to be one of your more memorable nights in Vegas,” says Savard before people start making their way to one of the chairs set up on stage. Once the volunteers are in place, Savard guides them through several relaxation techniques until they are all slumped over in their chairs with their eyes closed.

Savard tells his volunteers that they will awake on his command and think that they are musicians who will play with “pride and pizzazz” in a world famous orchestra. Soon they have their eyes open and they are playing their instruments with absolute conviction.

He uses this not only to make the audience laugh but also as a way of determining which of his volunteers are actually hypnotized and ready for the rest of the show. Savard makes a final selection of eight volunteers and conducts another relaxation technique where they get into an even deeper state of hypnosis. One of the female volunteers, on the night the show was attended, was so relaxed that she actually fell right out of her seat and into a contorted position on the floor.

“I just saved you $100 from going to a Cirque du Soleil show,” jokes Savard over the laughter from the audience.

From there, the show takes a wild turn as Savard creates a series of hilarious scenarios for his volunteers that they wholeheartedly embrace as though everything happening were real. Each premise is wilder than the next and the end result is non-stop laughs from the audience. The individual volunteers’ unique reactions add to the hilarity of Savard’s commands.

Apart from the scenarios, Savard also assigns the volunteers things that they will do when he shakes their hand or when they hear a certain song being played. The most hilarious command that he assigns is making one of the male volunteers think that they have jock itch. Savard shakes the guy’s hand and pulls away just before the volunteer is about to unbutton his pants.

As the show gets going and the volunteers prove themselves to be ready and willing to do anything, Savard “steps it up a notch” by describing even more outrageous scenarios that involve everything from suggestively shaped lollipops to blow-up dolls. This is one wild and crazy night of hilarious entertainment that you will not want to miss.