The following article is reprinted from the March 16, 2000 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer; it is a review of our appearance at the Sands Hotel & Resort in Atlantic City.

MAGAZINE

Snapshots / Daniel Rubin

Putting the Audience to Sleep and Getting Laughs Doing It

Maybe it was the mirror ball. Or the bright lights and TV crew. Maybe people just didn't feel comfortable being hypnotized before 200 strangers on a Saturday night at the Sands Hotel Casino.

By a guy who'd just reminded everyone to "take good care of your waitress."

Anyway, you had a stage full of volunteers in the Copa Room trying not to squirm in their seats as Richard Anthony and Genie Manay counted down from 10, saying things like, yes, "you will find your eyes starting to become heavy" and "picture yourself at the top of an escalator."

Picture yourself in the seasoned hands of the Exotic Hypnotics. They bill themselves as the world's first comedy hypnosis team.

They met seven years ago at a Star Trek convention in Valley Forge, where Richard was working solo, convincing people that they were crew members of the Starship Enterprise.

This weekend in Atlantic City, he was battling the suspicion that he'd somehow recruited a stage full of accountants.

Accountants are the worst, he'd said earlier, upstairs in a private club for high rollers and other VIPs, over Marlboro lights and two glasses of chardonnay. "They spend the whole time trying to analyze what we're doing."

College kids, meanwhile, are among the best. Executives, too. Risk-takers in general.

Relax every muscle in your body, Genie was saying, in a voice you could feel on the back of your neck. She was wearing an Egyptian style blue-sequined gown, and her big mane of red hair was in the style of country singer Dottie West.

Drop your shoulders.

Admittedly, everything was hurried. Their 90-minute act had been been cleaved in half, so they could squeeze on a bill with an Italian comic and a Canadian chanteuse — a favor, Richard said, to the promoter, an old friend.

Richard — a grandfather with a cigarette-cured Boston brogue and long-in-the-back, short-at-the-sides haircut known in hockey towns as a "Mullet" — says he doesn't need much warm-up; he can put someone under in seven minutes. Ninety percent of the population can be hypnotized, he said. The rest: "Low IQ or people who can't pay attention."

Eleven volunteers had clambered up on stage — three men and eight women — and they were looking like 10-percenters.

Feet flat. . . .

Relaxing more and more. . . .

By the time the Exotic Hypnotics had counted down to zero, birds chirped and a piano tinkled over the sound system. As the lights brightened, they kept talking.

It was time to see who'd gone under.

"Arms in the air," Richard ordered, and 10 troupers tried. One woman burst into giggles. Richard and Genie walked the stage, checking to see whose arms remained rigid. They could stay.

Seven were shown to their seats, leaving four women, all with eyes closed, hands now at their sides. Two in mini skirts appeared to be teenagers. One, a blonde in a blue dress, had been necking with her husband before the show started. This could be promising. An older woman, in dark slacks, sweater and shirt, seemed deepest in the well, her arms hanging low.

Richard started the fun by suggesting to the four women that the person next to them had forgotten to take a bath. "I just got a whiff of something terrible," he said.

"It's her," one teen volunteered. "I'm telling you, it's totally her."

"She says that you stink!" Richard said to the girl next to her, offering the microphone. Imagine Jenny Jones with a deep Boston brogue.

This was Mike the sound man's cue to play the Lynyrd Skynyrd song "That Smell."

Some background: The Exotic Hypnotics have just started working together in South Jersey, where Genie, whose last name is really Trefz, moved to be with her sick father. They'd lived in New Hampshire before that, not long after meeting at the Star Trek convention, where, says Genie, "He got me hook line and sinker with the question, 'Are you a Trekkie?' " Then he asked her if she wanted to meet Scotty.

After he taught her the trade, she worried about how much power she'd have over people. "He promised that nothing would happen," she says. "We have this bit when we convince people they need to go to the bathroom. The first night, I had a guy expose himself to the curtains. Very first show. Richard is oblivious. The audience is cracking up. Finally, Richard yells 'Freeze! You don't have to go that bad.'"

Richard, whose last name is Sullo, learned to hypnotize from Ginger Corte, whom he saw perform in Las Vegas while he was an airman stationed nearby. A year later, he was in both her act and her life.

The Exotic Hypnotics are big on nudge-nudge, wink-wink. They were dropping down to R-rated territory on Saturday night when Richard realized how young two of the girls were.

This was after he told them that everyone in the audience was naked. And that they were, too.

In fact, they were heavily made-up 13-year-olds. The father of one of the girls had deposited them at the show while he gambled.

Richard told the women that they were Playmates and that Bill Gates' nephew was in the audience. One by one, they sashayed into the crowd, and did a little dance for a man picked out for them. He told the blonde in the blue dress that when she woke up, she would crave her husband desperately. Her husband got out of his $20 seat and started bowing to Richard.

Then the Exotic Hypnotics suggested to the women that they were Madonna and famous backup singers like Demi Moore and Sharon Stone, and invited them to sing along to "Like a Virgin."

Back in the dressing room, as comedian Eddie Capone could be heard asking how many Italians were in the audience, Richard patted the sweat from his forehead and said it might have been even better if the TV crew hadn't been there to shoot the singer.

"It's much easier in total darkness," he said.

What was he talking about? It was great. The audience loved it. You are getting sleepy.