There’s more than a bit of sleight of hand behind the awkwardly titled new show Rob Lake Magic With Special Guests the Muppets. Lake, an America’s Got Talent finalist, has made the appearance of the Muppets a prime draw of his Broadway debut — and then relegated them mostly to interstitial bits between decently executed versions of classic illusions like sawing a woman in half, reassembling a ripped newspaper, and disappearing/reappearing in different places on the stage and in the Broadhurst Theatre.

Lake is a personable but somewhat robotic performer, a fact that becomes clear in his awkward interactions with members of the audience — including a truly cringeworthy exchange with a 7-and-a-half-year-old boy at my performance. All magicians are control freaks, but the better ones at least find a way to feign spontaneity if not actively encourage it in face-to-face encounters.

The routines with Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, and Animal are cute and may trigger nostalgic feels in theatergoers of a certain age despite the use of prerecorded voices from the furry stars. But there are too few of them and none really incorporate Lake’s magic in a meaningful way. (Making the Muppet gang appear suddenly in a giant convertible taxi cab from behind a dropped curtain is not exactly a shocker — especially since we know that the stage is equipped with trapdoors.) It feels like a bait-and-switch, which may explain why the show is closing early, just days after its official premiere.

One highlight is the Playbill bios of all the Muppets proudly touting their Broadway debuts (“Fozzie Bear can bear-ly contain his excitement to join this show!”). Curiously, the Broadhurst’s box seats do not offer places for the curmudgeonly Waldorf and Statler, but you can easily imagine how they’d heckle a show this underwhelming. “This Rob Lake is quite the magician,” Waldorf might say, prompting Statler to retort: “Yeah, he made the whole audience disappear.” ★★☆☆☆

ROB LAKE MAGIC WITH SPECIAL GUESTS THE MUPPETS
Broadhurst Theatre, Broadway
Running time: 80 minutes (with no intermission)
Tickets on sale through November 16 for $49 to $229