Review Rundown: The One With More Than A Little Magic
Potions in LA, Piñatas in San Diego, we tell a tree a story in Brooklyn. Six reviews.
The Review Crew is back and so is the FUN. This time out MAGIC is the theme: from wizards doing mixology to a stage magician pulling us into a web of conspiracy — with some stops along the way for magical delights of entirely different natures. LA. NYC. San Diego. Remote work. There’s a little something something no matter where you are, really.
Let’s just say it won’t be easy to pick a Pick of the Week on the podcast this time out.
Are you a creator who looks upon these reviews with jealousy? Okay, the positive ones from last week, at least? Then you might want to check out our How To Get Covered By NoPro guide, which we just updated for the first time in ages.
More From The Review Crew
- The REVIEW CREW podcast recording is every WEDNESDAY in our Discord: next recording is on 8/18/21 at 5:00PM PDT.
- Dive into Last Week’s Review Crew show.
- Check out the most recent Pick of the Week on the current episode of
The All-New NoPro Podcast. - Last week’s edition of the Rundown is right here.
- The next Pick of the Week will be announced in the Friday podcast drop.
Subscribe to our podcasts via Patreon for bonus content or find us ANYWHERE podcasts are found for the core ’cast: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Audible, Amazon Music, Stitcher, Spotify, and even YouTube!
32 Acres — Marike Splint
Free; Los Angeles, CA; Ends September 29
Her voice tells me to look west, to the train tracks beyond the fence, to the hill above with urban debris cratered into its surface like discharged buckshot; it reminds her of the strange coagulations in her pockets, “like city lint.”
This is a moment from 32 Acres, a site-specific, interactive, and multisensory soundwalk by Marike Splint, presented by Center Theatre Group in association with UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Set in the Los Angeles State Historic Park bordering Chinatown and Elysian Park, the title references its 32 acres of space. Layered with disarming metaphors, historical details, and personal musings (in addition to impeccable production design), it’s an individual perspective rooted in the universal and a meditation on emotional, physical, cultural, and geographical landscapes.
At its core, 32 Acres probes our relationships within these landscapes: generation to generation, individual to communal, person to city, natural to industrial. Splint explores how these connections embody and impact a place across time, eventually bleeding into and shaping our identities; within the scope of just 75 minutes, Splint acts as a cultural doula, birthing an entirely new perspective for shared spaces and how we serve as caretakers of the past, present, and future. It permanently altered my relationship to the park by endowing it with a stratum of meaning.
At its conclusion, I weaved through the park and spotted two people standing in front of a locked gate, searching for the horizon. They stood close and still, and as I approached I saw earbud evidence of what I already suspected: they were listening to the soundwalk, too. And now, I knew of two people who would retrace my footsteps as I retraced Splint’s, as she retraced those that came before, over hundreds of years.
— Laura Hess, Arts Editor
444bidden Fructus (“Forbidden Fruit”) — Elisabeth Stranathan
$95.95; Online through September 29
Tickets must be purchased 3 weeks ahead of the scheduled show date.
444bidden Fructus (“Forbidden Fruit”) is a “60-minute virtual & remote one-on-one personalized immersive mystery experience conducted via USPS & Zoom.” This is a show that toggles rapidly between reality and what’s-probably-but-not-certainly-make-believe, blurring the borders of magick, superstition, and shared interest. Don’t be surprised if your own 444bidden journey mixes stories from Elisabeth’s life with personal insight, history, philosophy, and Eden’s cosmic guidance. The sooner you let go of expectation and embrace the liminal nature of this remote experience, the more you’ll get out of it. It’s been a few days since my Project_Infinite_Architect meeting, and I’m still pouring over the beautiful chronological anomaly (aka the personalized art book filled with ephemera from my life and times) I accidentally co-authored with Stranathan last month. Or maybe next month. Time is, after all, cyclical.
I recommend 444bidden Fructus for adventurers, collectors, people who love astrology, empaths, and fans of Lewis Carroll.
— Leah Davis, New England Correspondent
Andy’s Super Fun Happy Magic Show — Andy Deemer
$15; Remote; Latest Run Concluded
Magic is always a tricky thing for us here at NoPro.
On the one hand, it’s impossible to deny that the magical arts are fundamental to the way great experience design works. They’re practically table stakes. It’s also true that on a fundamental level magic shows are participatory, whether we are talking about the volunteers from the audience (patsies or honestly clueless) or just how every illusion needs the quirks of human perception in order to work.
Yet all too often we’re asked to attend a magic show, especially one over the dreaded Zoom, and what we get is maybe a good performance but is a far cry from what we look for when we go seeking immersive wonder.
I am so very, very pleased to let you know that Andy Deemer’s Andy’s Super Fun Happy Magic Show is one of those rare magic shows that takes the form to the next level, and does so by wrapping the audience up in an immersive story.
Not only is Deemer very very good at close up magic — like award-winningly good — the craft itself is used to create a world and a story, not just as ends in and of themselves. In this way the show borrows some of the structure of the trend in autobiographical theatrical magic and bends it towards creating a playing field where the audience is invited to make believe right along with the creator.
In so many ways this show helped me understand where the line is for me on what kinds of magic shows we should be covering here at NoPro. What the table stakes are. It’s also a delightful time, particularly for those of us with a fondness for an era when conspiracy theories were fodder for science fiction series, not cable news mainstays. Catch the next iteration whenever Deemer brings it back, or reach out for a one-off for a group of friends.
— Noah Nelson, Founder and Publisher
Arborlogues: A Botanical Recital Performed for One Tree — Dan Daly & Lee LeBreton
Free; Performed in Prospect Park, Brooklyn; Run Concluded
A single cedar tree near the Concert Grove Pavilion in Prospect Park, Brooklyn is wrapped with a red curtain — like an image out of Twin Peaks, but friendlier. A stage manager hands you the script, briefly explains the assignment, then ushers you inside. The task is simple, but also wild: deliver the monologue to the tree.
Arborlogues: A Botanical Recital Performed for One Tree perhaps could be a more private affair, for those of us unaccustomed to delivering monologues to trees. The hovering presence of the (lovely) stage manager outside the curtain, seeming to listen in, initially had me self-conscious as I began reciting Lee LeBreton’s words.
But as I kept going, the nerves faded. LeBreton’s warm, spirited monologue swept me along. One section explaining how our eyes see color seemed to demand a brisk delivery, so I spoke breathlessly. The history of the spot is seamlessly weaved in. And a later shift to reflections on our current moment of crisis feels very natural.
The commotion of a children’s birthday party and, at one point, an extremely animated and gossipy conversation occurring right outside the curtain all seemed appropriate. That passers-by seemed to barely notice the curtain, let alone the man talking to a tree inside it, felt about right.
Near the end, I was asked to recall a precious memory from the past year involving a tree. I spoke about visiting Barry the Barred Owl, a beloved Central Park fixture who recently died. I told the tree how much Barry had meant to me and a friend. I told the tree that I was very sad about Barry’s death.
Within 15 minutes and following a barely perceptible shift I was, suddenly, speaking as I might to a very old friend.
— Joey Sims, New York City Correspondent
Optika Piñata — Optika Moderna/La Jolla Playhouse
Free; San Diego; Current Run Concluded
Is five and a half hours of travel, round-trip, worth it for seven minutes in a U-Haul?
It is if those seven minutes were designed by David Israel Reynoso and brought to life by his team at Optika Moderna, the San Diego immersive theatre makers that have set the high water mark on the West Coast with their previous productions Waking La Llorona and Las Quinceñeras.
Piñata is the first piece from the company that is expressly designed with families in mind, and I’ll cop to being put back into a state of childlike wonder by the one-on-one storytelling experience that introduces audiences to the world of Teatro Piñata.
One of the exciting things about the company is that it has developed a strong “onboarding identity” with each of the live events being framed around the idea of a kind of mystic optometrist company whose devices reveal the world hidden to us. That motif carries on here, and this also marks the second Optika Moderna piece that involves elements that take place at home.
At the conclusion of the installation’s one-on-one we’re entrusted with a packet that contains the building blocks, if you will, of Teatro Piñata and an injunction to await instructions on the night of the next Full Moon.
Created for La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls Pop-Up this past weekend in San Diego, I suspect that this is not the last we’ve seen of Optika Piñata. At least I hope so, after all, the full WOW Festival is set to return next April. It’s a perfect bite-sized experience.
— Noah Nelson, Founder and Publisher
Wizard’s Den — Viral Ventures Inc and Explore Hidden
$35–49; Los Angeles; Ongoing
It may only be August, but some of us are ready for Halloween! And some of us just really want to enjoy an afternoon whisked away to another time and place. What time and place? That’s not important, all you need to know is here, magic is real. Wizard’s Den is a mixology experience perfect for both of those people. Chalk words written on a metal door let you know you’ve come to the right place, but it’s the portrait-lined staircase that transports you to another time and place. The decor is mysterious with out of commision antiques and seemingly European accents everywhere you look to set the tone. Our table was an old steamer chest and our chairs were two stools.
Included in the price of admission are three cocktails over the course of an hour and a half long mixology experience — you’ll craft some of these cocktails yourself — that includes trivia and whimsy. The host is excellent at approaching the subjects of wizards and alcohol with humor and poise, while never taking himself or the experience too seriously. He walks a perfect line of dad jokes and professionalism (he is your professor, after all). The rest of the staff are kind and courteous, and wow do they all wear a lot of hats, so please feed the cauldron on your way out (that means tip). Don’t let the guests in Hogwarts robes out front fool you, this is not a Harry Potter experience, this is a witch and wizard experience covering all the genres of witch- even Shakespeare! All in all this experience is whatever you want it to be, so bring ALL of your witchy pop-culture knowledge and you may score yourself some free booze. And that’s pretty magical if you ask me.
— Briana Roecks, Social Media Correspondent
Discover the latest immersive events, festivals, workshops, and more at our new site EVERYTHING IMMERSIVE, new home of NoPro’s show listings.
NoPro is a labor of love made possible by our generous Patreon backers. Join them today!
In addition to the No Proscenium website, our podcast, and our newsletters, you can find NoPro on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, in the Facebook community Everything Immersive, and on our Discord.
