Review: THE MAGIC SHOW is Revealing

The iconic character of Tom from "Glass Menagerie" seems to hover over just about everything in Andrew Hinderaker's emotionally charged new work THE MAGIC SHOW, now enjoying a world premiere at The Goodman's Owen Theatre through Nov. 20th.

It's a good thing. While Tom presented "truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion," Hinderaker's protagonist, The Magician (played with charm and sprite-like energy by Brett Schneider) deftly tries to straddle both truth and illusion. It's Tennessee Williams as told by Criss Angel.

Card tricks, slight of hand and mind reading with audience participation all play into the narrative of the show much like a traditional prestidigitation. Schneider is both engaging and entertaining as both an actor and a magician. And if the magic tricks were all that there was to this show, it might be enough to garner a look. It's really a memory play, however. It's well worth the price of admission.

The Magician is haunted by the ghost from his past who literally conjure up in the middle of his act. His former lover is a cocky Olympic diver (a likeable Sean Parris as The Diver). The Magician uses his craft as a curtain by which he hides behind. He's always performing, always controlling the outcome and always maintaining an illusion even in his relationship with The Diver.

Magicians never explain how they do something. To do so, would be to rob the world of the sense of wonderment. So who or what is The Magician without his tricks?

The Diver has had his own trust issues, of course. He had his heart broken by a fellow diver and now isn't quite sure if he can trust a man who makes his living by fooling other people. It doesn't help that when The Magician presents The Diver with the choice of where to eat or vacation, The Diver quickly begins to realize that, just like a magic trick, his choice is an illusion and The Magician has already set thing in a predetermined motion to produce an expected outcome.

And then there is the matter of The Magician's father (a gruff an appropriately weathered Francis Guinan). The Father is a fellow magician who abandoned The Magician as a boy. Now an aging magician who should have long ago hung up his cape and wand, The Father is stumbling through life, still doing the same, sad magic act he's been doing since he first abandoned his son. You're never quite sure if this is because he doesn't know how to be anything else, or if it's because he no longer can tell what is truth and what is an illusion.

Eventually, The Magician's grift is revealed. Without spoiling much, it's a heart-wrenching truth that is also cathartic in some ways. Who among us can say we aren't guilty of using some sort of misdirection or slight-of-hand in our day-to-day relationships? Hinderaker's script uses the artifice of both live theater and a magic shows to reveal when we are most vulnerable.

It's one helluva trick.

THE MAGIC PLAY runs through Nov. 20th at the Owen stage at the Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn. Tickets, $10-$40. 312.443.3800. goodmantheatre.org

To post a comment, you must register and login.