One talks, the other doesn’t, but both speak volumes by debunking magic while, at the same time, showing how dazzling honest trickery can be. They’re Penn and Teller, together for four decades, during which time they morphed from off-Broadway enfants terribles to Broadway babies to grand old men of Vegas.

The pair hasn’t been on the Great White Way since 1987, but that changed tonight, July 12, with the arrival of Penn and Teller on Broadway, a limited engagement of illusions, old and new, at the Marquis Theater. Have the duo’s ubiquitous presence on television and long-established personae in popular culture rendered critics jaded and unamused, or will the scribes still experience thrills and chills as P&T render the impossible possible?

Certainly, TheaterMania’s David Gordon is all-out fanboy. He calls the engagement “masterful” and raves that “in the hands of director John Rando, there are no dull moments in the show, which is a magic trick in itself. Even with flashy sets (by Daniel Conway) and lighting (by Jeff Croiter) that fill the theater, the creative elements emphasize the production's parlor magic feel. . . As far as performers go, Penn and Teller are the very tops.”

Calling the production “a summer treat,” Newsday’s Linda Winer gushes that the magical duo are still “amazing” yet have “a respect for tradition.” She reports that, “Penn eats fire and shoots a nail gun into his groin. Teller swallows a hundred embroidery needles, which reappear strung along a thread -- the first trick Penn ever saw him do.”

Somewhat less dazzled, Elizabeth Vincentelli of The New York Post grants the show only 2 ½ (out of 4) stars and grouses that “several numbers lack…directness and seem to be made up of 90 percent Penn patter . . . How about making the lecture disappear?” Vincentelli also finds Teller’s sleight-of-hand moves “underwhelming,” though she finds Penn’s fire-eating “wondrous.”

Concurring is Daily News critic Joe Dziemianowicz, who quips that too often the production (to which he grants 3 out of 5 stars), turns “abra-ca-drab-ra.” A “careless snafu” that “wrecked the show’s opening illusion” definitely hurt, but also, because the evening is kind of a best-of, “there’s no momentum or build.”

More approving is New York Times chief critic Ben Brantley, who echoes David Gordon in noting that Penn and Teller’s “cleverest talent” may be in making the “anonymous, cathedral-size Marquis” Theater feel “almost as intimate as a sidewalk game of three-card monte.” He also appreciates that “low-key moments are presented with the same throwaway bravado as the big set pieces.”

Vulture.com’s Jesse Green agrees, writing that “Penn & Teller are still, in the best sense, up to their old tricks.” A few bits fizzle, and some of Penn’s diatribes seem “a bit disingenuous at this point,” but ultimately, like a rabbit Teller pulls out of a hat, “something that looks pretty alive is all but jumping out of the formerly moribund Marquis.”

Variety’s Marilyn Stasio agrees that the production is full of “marvels” and that P&T remain “thrillingly subversive” with their “in jokes serious and silly, political digs with sharp points, diatribes against fraudulent psychics, little lectures on ethics, and non-stop…pranks, stunts, tricks, illusions, deceptions, and baffling feats of — for want of a better word — magic.” “What more do you want out of a magic show?” she kvells.

If you’re Mark Kennedy of The Associated Press, the answer is nothing at all. He finds the duo “as fresh as ever” with “something here for everyone.” Kennedy likens Teller to “a silent movie star, a nice juxtaposition from his bombastic partner” who “wants the audience to wonder not how they do their tricks, but why.”

Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter happily recommends the “entertaining, fast-paced show” that is “expertly staged by Broadway veteran John Rando” and features “dazzling sleight of hand” from Teller. Scheck closes his review with, “Catch them before they disappear.”

“Penn & Teller have produced another amusing and provocative show,” applauds Alex Robinson of The Broadway Blog, who notes that “the contrast of their styles gives the show a certain musicality, with Teller’s pieces tending toward quiet, almost poetic moments and providing a counterpoint to Jillette’s more blustery, cocky, raconteur character.”

NBC New York’s Robert Kahn calls Penn & Teller on Broadway “relentlessly beguiling” and “playful, lean and polished.” He adds, “Their act is relaxed and assured, in a way that only time could accomplish. Penn and Teller make you believe the impossible.”