Choices are often cast as things to make us wary. There’s usually a dichotomy involved: we’re meant to choose the right thing, not the wrong thing; make a good choice, not a bad one. But in the capable and crafty hands of magician Dennis Watkins, choices are less to be made and more to be delighted in. As he mentions at several points in his show The Magic Parlour (the first in the new season at Downtown’s Liberty Magic), the magic happens because of the choices the audience has made: to buy tickets to the show, to sit in a particular chair, to pick one card over another. Without giving away too much, let me suggest that you make the choice to see The Magic Parlour the first chance you get.
The show, which has been running for eight years in Chicago, is a fitting start to the new season at Liberty Magic: it was the inspiration for the venue, where Watkins also serves as an artistic advisor (his recreation of Houdini’s water torture cell is the centerpiece of Liberty Magic’s window display). Based on that pedigree, it might go without saying that Watkins is a consummate expert at his craft, using commonplace objects to extraordinary effect. His varied feats of mindreading and sleight of hand are punctuated throughout the evening by the story of how he came to be a magician—via his grandfather, who taught him the craft and whose collection of books and props he inherited.
The refrain of that story, and of the show more generally, is that a magician’s highest purpose should be to inspire a sense of the fantastic in the audience—to empower adults to relive what it was like to be a kid—and in this Watkins succeeds by leaps and bounds. His performance is a deft tightrope walk between childlike wonder and grown-up sophistication, a theme that carries through from the music to the props to his stage presence, which pairs an expertly-tailored three-piece suit with an expertly-honed puckish persona.
Perhaps the most wonderful thing about the show is the sense of fundamental optimism and possibility it inspires, the notion that a series of random choices on the part of a roomful of strangers could add up not to chaos but to something so delightful. For a member of Watkins’s audience, there are no right or wrong choices—there are simply different choices that will lead to different outcomes, all of them magical. Watkins’s interactions with his audience (who he refers to alternately as “beautiful people” and “friends”) beautifully highlight the necessity of communal contribution to the outcome of each piece, starting with the six volunteers who assist him in the show’s opening number and building from there.
The sum of these individual choices adds up to a marvelous whole. As the evening progresses, each piece doubles back and informs the others, snowballing into an ultimate effect whose payoff is truly remarkable. I won’t mention any spoilers except to say: ask for the encore. I don’t have even the first clue how Watkins does it, but that’s hardly the point: the point is that, for the duration of this show, I really felt like a kid again, with all the curiosity and wonder that entails.
The Magic Parlour runs through September 29th at Liberty Magic. Tickets and season subscriptions can be purchased here.
Laura Caton grew up as a military brat and has lived in six states and two countries, but considers Pittsburgh her adopted hometown. She moved back to Pittsburgh in 2017 after four years of working in theater administration in New York City. When she’s not writing about theater, she can be found translating German novels, watching anything that bears even a passing resemblance to a Nora Ephron movie, and reading omnivorously.
Categories: Archived Reviews