If you’re bored of the type of magic that always produces the same old tropes (predictable card tricks, dull magician banter in matching suits, tired efforts to build an air of mystery and suspense), then this show is for you. The performance gloriously thumbs its nose at the masculine world of Vegas-style magic.
This show is the love-child of Las Vegas glamour magic and trailer park dreams.
Dennis Diamond, Markus Pocus and Darryl Hannah are three magicians packing op-shop machismo; a whirlwind of unbuttoned silk shirts, cowboy boots, gaudy print jackets and glasses that haven’t seen the light of day since the 70’s. The trio don’t doubt their matted mullet sex appeal for a second, posing regularly for the audience’s viewing pleasure. The effect is hilarious.
The scene is set in the Elephant Room, which looks suspiciously like a living room vomited out of a Texan trailer park. If the mystery and glamour tend towards excess and extravagance, the velour couch solidly grounds the performance. The Elephant Room is the world and all the world is contained in the Elephant Room. Here we encounter the trio’s hopes, dreams, shortcomings and aspirations.
The stage is a flurry of activity: the trio come together to collaborate on elaborate tricks and stunts, but just as often they are all off in their own worlds eliciting the impossible again and again. There’ll be a magician doing card tricks in one corner, while another is making objects fly, and the third is magically transforming liquid from one object to another. Your attention is torn between all three and you feel delighted when you catch a trick that wasn’t the focus of the whole room. There’s something otherworldly about this performance as the magicians shift from their characters into figures from their dreams.
This show is the love-child of Las Vegas glamour magic and trailer park dreams. The combination is deeply satisfying. The result is visually stunning, hilariously entertaining, and cheekily irreverent to the traditions of magic.
These guys show you just what is possible in the magic world. The Elephant Room will leave you with a belly full of joy and a new appreciation of what is possible in the world of magic and theatre.
