I went to go see magician Chris Bruce at the Hamilton Fringe Festival last night. His show, Why Card Tricks Are Important, is part of the Fringe’s “Gallery Series”. It’s an unusual collection of short shows — this one runs about twenty minutes — performed for much smaller audiences.
The show contains — spoiler alert — card tricks. In fact it contains nothing which could not be called a card trick. They are spiffy and well-executed card tricks and fiercely interactive.
The burning question is whether or not the show could succeed in convincing someone that card tricks are, in fact, important. A more interesting question might be could anything convince you that card tricks were important. The answer is, unless you are slightly deranged, no… Unless you accept a perverse artistic meta-definition of important which allows that frivolous pursuits are important as a celebration of their own right to exist. After all, if we have a species have evolved to the point where we have so thoroughly beaten back the threats of disease, malnutrition, predators and war that we have the free time to wonder what exactly Justin Bieber is up to, isn’t that a triumph worth celebrating?
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Slightly off-topic, but in a few weeks down on Queen Street, I'll be helping to produce a storytelling workshop for actors. He was here earlier this year headlining a theatre festival and he's a hilarious and engaging speaker. The shows will be fantastic if you want to go see, but I think the workshop would be really valuable for magicians. Information is up here if you want to go: http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/soulo-theatre-presents-three-nights-of-james-judd-in-toronto-tickets-17748859316?aff=es2
I still can’t figure out how he did it. I spent my entire 30-minute commute home trying to figure it out. I can’t. Chris Funk‘s phenomenal magic blew my mind in his show Redefining Wonder at the Toronto Fringe Festival.
I saw Lance Burton in Las Vegas and David Copperfield when he last came to Toronto. The twelve-year-old magician in me was looking forward to seeing this. I was expecting something good. I was not expecting that it would be that good.
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Last night I went to the Toronto Fringe and Chris Funk’s Redefining Wonder. I felt some sympathy because I’ve had my own Thursday 10PM opening night at a theatre festival, but the show came recommended to me so I went to go see.
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My interview with HOWL Magazine http://t.co/Tirswq69n6 http://t.co/sPyEFitV0r
— James Alan (@james_alan) June 24, 2015