Spoiler alert: It’s probably best to read this review after you’ve watched the show, if you want to be surprised by “In & Of Itself,” which I do recommend watching.
In 2018, in New York, Derek DelGaudio delivered nearly 600 in-person performances of his one-man storytelling/ magic/ interactive EST experience, “In & Of Itself.” It’s lately been a subject of discussion and disagreement on podcasts and, at least in my family, on phone calls, as it was released in a filmed format that’s now streaming on Hulu, directed by Frank Oz and executive-produced by Stephen and Evelyn Colbert.
It is very difficult to describe the arc of the show. DelGaudio is a brilliant illusionist, which he demonstrates in segments interspersed and overlaid with memoiristic narration. It builds and builds to what we’re primed to believe is a sort of communion, but I think of the first half as the set-up, and the second half as the sting. The set, in the Daryl Roth Theatre, is a small, dark stage with just a table and six insets on the wall containing objects DelGaudio stares at or handles during the performance, as well as the 150 audience members whom he also stares at and handles during the performance.
It should tell you something that the mind-blowingly impossible sleight-of-hand card tricks DelGaudio pulls off while simultaneously telling his life story were, in the end, the least manipulative aspect of the show. DelGaudio’s even more masterful trick was to twist his audience into pretzels of emotional vulnerability, by inviting them to believe that his magical powers extended to seeing straight into their souls. It’s difficult to bring an audience to tears, as any writer will tell you. But it seems that if you spend a lifetime learning how to deceive people and also have at hand a willing bevy of assistants, some cash on hand for an Uber, and a good non-disclosure agreement, we can be in the palm of your hand in no time.
The pretzel-shaping begins before the sheep have even entered the pen … I mean, before the audience has entered the theater … when they are invited to consider how to answer the question: “Who am I?” by choosing a white card off a wall of many hundreds of cards. Each card is topped with I AM, with the possible answers in alphabetical order.
People linger at the wall, most seeming to carefully select a word that aligns with their actual self-image. VISIONARY, LEADER (Bill Gates’ choice), FAILURE, NOBODY, JOURNALIST, FRIEND, MIDNIGHT TOKER, IMMIGRANT, REFLECTION, ADVOCATE, PEDIATRICIAN. Some choose a more ironic identity. Stephen Colbert, in his interview with DelGaudio in 2017, showed his audience his I AM … AN IDIOT card.
(I AM … A RACIST was also an option. DelGaudio said it had been selected twice, and made for a very awkward atmosphere in the small theater.)
The audience members then hand their “identity” cards to a theater employee, and take their seats. If I were among them, choosing a word for myself would have already turned me into a blubbering mess in front of a bunch of strangers. The first part of the show is a disorienting mix of story snippets followed by pregnant pauses in which DelGaudio stares at one or another of the insets on the wall.
I was relieved when he took a deck of cards from an inset containing the mouth of a wolf and sat down at the table to show us what’s possible between humans and 52 playing cards, given enough talent, attention, and time to practice. I so badly want to tell you what specific trick he pulled off, whose secrets, I imagine, would not reveal themselves to me even with two dozen viewings, or an app that enabled me to slow down the video to one quarter speed.
He’d given us adequate warning that tricks were forthcoming. One of the early stories was about how he’d once been a people-pleasing dog, but then became a devilish wolf. As a card trick master, DelGaudio could have dressed in a sheep’s or a lamb’s or a piglet’s clothing, and I would have eaten up his tricks with just as much relish.
“How the hell does he do it?” I asked myself, then my husband, then Google. But I really didn’t feel the compulsion to reach an answer. The question was enough. My awe sufficed. I lost myself in the awe for a few moments, and it was wonderful. This sort of manipulation I can get behind. It feels accessible, as though I might also enter into the secrets if only I had the time and energy to apply to learning them.
One of the two laws-of-nature-defying feats that make up the second part of the show could be called a card trick, after a fashion. The other might be better explained as many hours of advance legwork. They blew my mind, too, but they were not awesome. I don’t want to give much more away, but the identity cards turn audience members into blubbering messes.
But I found I just wanted answers on the mechanics of the thing, felt I deserved them, and cheated without them. The tricks, once I’d slept on the show and considered it afresh in the light of morning, just felt dishonest, and inhumane.
Maybe I’m being churlish. He did tell us he was a wolf. But he’d also made a play for our trust. Seventeen minutes in, he’d introduced an interactive element that established his willingness to put blind faith in his audience. He’d made himself momentarily vulnerable in order to lull us into believing we could trust him with our vulnerability.
I found the range of reactions to the show as momentarily interesting as its content. (Immediately after viewing, I headed directly to Reddit to see if anyone had cracked the code of DelGaudio’s crowning trick. As of this writing, they haven’t.)
I love the idea of 150 people experiencing something unique and meaningful and connective with each other. Someday soon, we’re going to need a lot of that sort of thing to heal the relational ruptures created by the pandemic. But “In & Of Itself” is not that. The momentary illusion of connection DelGaudio provides is particularly cruel because it’s exactly what we all need so badly right now. He’s a wolf, all right, but disguised as a good shepherd.
I AM … IMPRESSED BUT UNMOVED.
