On Friday night at the Lincoln Theater, a remarkable performance played out as Kevin and Cindy Spencer, now entering their 20th professional year of performing magical illusions, took the audience on a journey that will be remembered for a lifetime.

We theater-goers crossed a threshold and found ourselves in a wonderland, all of us kids again, saying, “Wow, how did they do that?” We’ll never know, of course — but seeing is believing — or is it?

Kevin is a personable young man and his able assistant Cindy had the audience gasping, shaking our heads and applauding two performers who electrified their audience in the best traditions of illusionist Harry Houdini and his beloved wife Bess.

The performance opened with Kevin holding up a copy of Friday’s Napa Valley Register. He breezed through the pages and asked the audience if they read the paper and liked the Register. The crowd cheered and the magician said that the great response was quite different from the reception other local audiences in other towns give their newspapers. So we must be doing something right!

Then he proceeded to carefully tear the paper into strips, and the strips into tiny bits. “So what?” you might say. The “so what” was that with the flick of his wand and wrist, somehow, an intact Register reappeared out of the air. I saw it myself and found it hard to believe.

The night was filled with magic as Kevin bounced off the stage and selected a wary but brave young girl named Julia for the centerpiece in his ominous “Spikes of Doom” routine. Young Julia lay prone on a table center stage with the illusion of spikes closing down on her body — but somehow, she returned to her seat intact, and I shook her hand for her bravery and spunk.

Kevin and Cindy Spencer did it all, including mind-reading the thoughts of three folks in the audience. Ed was asked to think of his favorite vocalist; Pete, a place he always wanted to visit; and Sonia, the card she chose from a pack of huge playing cards. The magician thought and then wrote what he picked up from those good people on the back of a rolling board at his side. The answers from the trio were Johnny Cash, Italy and the Ace of Hearts, and when he turned the board around, that’s exactly what he had written. A gasp traveled through the audience at that bit of magic.

Illusions, illusions and the beat went on. Withdrawing brightly colored scarves from his fist, he turned them into a colorful bouquet of artificial flowers, and the audience let out a collective, “Wow!” But there was more, much more, and the magician was saving his best for last.

Kevin spoke of the late, great Harry Houdini, whom all aspiring magicians yearn to emulate, and he turned the calendar back 100 years to successfully perform two of the master’s illusions: Houdini walking through a brick wall (honest, I saw Kevin Spencer do it) and the great Houdini’s milk can escape, surviving death, as he was manacled and submerged in water in a huge commercial milk can, circa 1900. We saw Kevin squeeze into that can as displaced water splashed on the stage floor and, in less than two minutes, a shackle-free magician popped the can’s cover and climbed out soaking wet and gasping for breath to a standing ovation of relieved spectators.

When the performance ended to loud applause, everyone, it seemed, was breathless and willing to share their reactions. Four-year-old Gracie Walter loved it all, especially the pretty colored scarves and bouquet.

Rick Hayes from Jenson Motors and his wife Penny marveled at the “girl in the box” — head in one circular window, legs and feet in another nearby — and, of course, the escape from that dreaded milk can.

Patricia De Bord, a volunteer usher, spoke of her lifetime love of magic shows. In that rather cool theater on a chilly Napa evening as the audience held hands for a mental telepathy exercise, the lady on my left, Grace Doyle, warmed my cold hand with her warm hand and opined how remarkable it was that one person could influence all others as Kevin Spencer did in a night filled with mystery and illusions.

As Robert Frost once wrote about the great Harry Houdini in his poem “Escapist — Never,” “His life is a pursuit of a pursuit forever.” Kevin and Cindy Spencer are on that pursuit, and I hope that, one day, they reach their goal.

Ev Parker can be reached at evjenpar@mailbug.com or 224-9956