What’s On ‘The Other Side’ Reveals Itself As Ordinary (The NoPro Review)
The ‘psychological séance’ fails to hide the man behind the curtain
(The following contains moderate spoilers for this experience.)
Ah, spooky season, the time of year when the immersive world is bursting with ghouls, ghosts, and everything in between. Our “busy season” always brings forth new endeavors, acting as a catalyst for some of the most innovative and progressive pieces of work in the field. There’s something for everyone: from jump scares and grotesque events for those seeking a serious spook to the psychological thrillers and even the occasional contact with the spirit world…if you’re lucky. The Other Side, the newest project of acclaimed mentalist Jason Suran, seeks to make its name among the many shows running this Fall with its offering of a “psychological séance” experience. Asking the question “Are [séances] truly a gateway to another realm or simply the manifestations of our terrified imaginations?”, The Other Side presents a fascinating front, but investigation reveals its all just a flimsy facade.
Full transparency: I grew up engaging with the spirit world regularly as we have a close family friend who is a medium. I have even participated in first hand engagements with spirits myself, so needless to say I have a strong respect for the “other side.” Although I’ve attended many readings before, I had never been to a proper séance, so I was excited to have the opportunity to attend one; add in theatre as a vehicle for storytelling and framing the night as an “experiential” event, and I am highly intrigued.
Set inside the swanky Norwood Club, and with cocktail attire required of each participant, the scene was set for a decadent night out, one reminiscent of a time gone by. At check-in each guest is given a crystal dowsing pendant, a tool used in divination exercises, which I am told is good for one signature cocktail. I am left to mingle in the lounge awaiting further instructions. Once the host finds me, he hands me a small piece of paper which prompts me to fill out the name of a deceased loved one and a memory we shared, and an envelope to seal it in. Soon I’m escorted downstairs, where everyone else has been getting to know each other over some light hor’dourves. I chat with the other guests until Suran calls our attention; he begins telling us about the history of the Norwood Club and a famed medium who once held residence there. We’re led into the next room where we learn more about this historical mentalist while being entertained by Suran’s participatory magic and mind tricks, and even a bit of hypnosis. Although Suran is naturally charming and really makes you feel at ease, the experience is so heavily based in informative, monologue style text that I find my mind wandering off every now and then.
After seeing a number of Suran’s interpretations of famous magic acts, like the popular “Russian roulette nail inside the bag” illusion and a riff on a levitation trick commonly known as “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” we are finally ready for the main event of the night: the séance. Many of the magic acts Suran presented in the first part of the evening were ones I was already familiar with, so the suspension of disbelief was hard to sell. But one trick in particular had me believing, even believing enough to allow myself to truly use my spiritual energy and call upon my loved one, the one whose name I wrote down earlier, to come through in the séance.
As a group we formed a circle — left hand on your knee, right hand on the wrist on the person next to you — and Suran makes sure we know that all doors in the room are blocked by furniture. He even has the guests next to him place their feet over his own to guarantee he is seated the entire time.
Despite all these assurances of legitimacy and my own willingness to believe, what proceeds is sadly lackluster and mildly offensive.
Once we’ve called the spirits into the room, there is the obligatory waiting period. There is a slight panic that nothing is happening, but it’s brief. Suran takes this opportunity to make us aware that it’s not easy to come through from the other side. He says, “Imagine what’s it’s like being on the other side of this. How lonely it must be waiting for your loved one for that five minutes once a year.” My trepidatious belief thus far increases to unabashed. I begin calling on the spirits in earnest, desperately and unapologetically opening the door for contact. I am here, I am listening, I’m sorry it’s been so long. And that’s where the shenanigans start.
I suddenly feel someone grab my chair from behind and try to tip me out of it. I yelp in surprise, which alarms the other guests in the room, but everyone else soon begins to experience similar hijinks. The window shutters clatter, guests are touched and shaken in their chairs, the gramophone clicks on to play a warped, old time-y tune. The “spiritual happenings” of this “séance” border on sad clowning at this point, pushing the envelope of how ridiculous and obvious they can be, while still attempting to convince the audience it’s real. One guest even says “Not the hair. Not okay. Do not touch my hair,” which I can only assume means a facilitator of the “séance” was touching her hair without consent. I am crestfallen. I left feeling an ache in my heart.
I’m not sure how to best define what exactly The Other Side is in terms of intention, structure, and genre. It’s unclear whether the production is sincerely trying to convince participants that these events are real or if it’s poking fun at the campy nature of the illusionist world, especially since all of the magic tricks up until the séance portion are well done and quite convincing. It’s definitely not just a magic show, but I don’t know if this could be fully called theatre either as there isn’t any effort made in terms of performance-driven storytelling or world-building in juxtaposition to real life. There doesn’t seem to be an attempt made to execute an artistic vision at all. “Experience” feels like it could be more apt a framework as the structure is built around audience participation, but only for guests who are “chosen” (seemingly at random by Suran, but magic aficionados will know he’s choosing the most susceptible members of the audience). About half the room gets to participate in one trick or another at some point, but not everyone does, which creates an unclear divide between participants and spectators.
If I had to describe the show as succinctly as possible, I would call it an intimate and lightly participatory magic experience. However, the production markets itself as “microtheatre.” They define it as “a multi-sensory genre of performance art that … strives to give a small group of strangers a powerful and unifying experience.” This is in contrast to “immersive theatre,” which the production states “seeks to give large audiences a variety of individual experiences.” I find this distinction is a bit off-course. The practice of microtheatre, originating in Spain but quickly spreading to Latinx communities around the world, consists of multiple short shows performing on the same night in purposefully intimate, non-traditional spaces. For example, Lower East Side theater venue Teatro SEA offers the wings of the theatre as a performance space for their annual microtheatre festival, but not the actual stage. Tickets are quite inexpensive (equal to mere dollars per show) so audience can see many shows in one evening. These performance events serve both a chance for artists to share their work as well as an opportunity for the community to gather and connect, with multiple breaks in between shows for artists and audience to mingle and have a drink together, much like a traditional French salon. With its triple digit ticket price and emphasis on a single, long-form narrative, I would not call The Other Side “microtheatre.” (I could see this definition being closer to what the United States knows as microperformance, which speaks more to their goal of “give a small group of strangers a powerful and unifying experience,” but even that’s a co-opted and difficult term to justify.)
Semantics aside, the didactic nature of the show’s biographical content and one man delivery causes the whole thing to end up reading like a weirdly intimate TED Talk. I did leave The Other Side with an appreciation and longing for the grandiosity of events like these throughout history, but it also left me hankering for a great cocktail party or even a murder mystery night with friends. Something about the pomp and circumstance of The Other Side works really well, but the séance at the heart of the piece lacks integrity, leaving the audience with only smoke and mirrors in the end. Whether you’re a believer or not, I wouldn’t recommend trying your luck at this production unless you’re looking for a truly hokey experience.
The Other Side has concluded its fall 2019 run at the Norwood Club.
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