Exactly three years ago tonight, on these pages, I offered my cryptic, though glowing, assessment of Dan White's superlative The Magician at the Nomad, which remains one of my all time favorite magic performances. At this writing, of course, we remain in the throes of the pandemic, and while hope is on the horizon, things remain bleak. We all need a break, some tie to the life of live performances that has eluded us for the better part of a year. And Dan White has just what the doctor ordered - The Magician Online. Thanks to a kindly Christmas gift from my wife, we were able to see that performance tonight. It is a delight - mesmerizing performances, mind-blowing magic and a high-end theater experience delivered to your living room.
In providing an assessment of this show, I find myself in much the same position as I was in attempting to review The Magician at the Nomad: I don't want to spoil any bit of this experience -- from the mysterious package that arrives at your door, to the warm up video clips of the Nomad and of great magicians through history, or to the engaging, interactive magical experience that follows. Once again, though, my notes from the show are virtually useless, because nothing Dan White performs is off-the-shelf magic. As I noted in my earlier review, "there are moments when it seems like he's employing a traditional bit of magic" -- here, I'd give the example of a rising card routine or a pendulum act -- "but then this fine performer twists it into something so very marvelous that it defies every expectation."
Of course, because this blog focuses on magic ephemera, I offer these two tiny pieces. First, there's the illustration above featuring a small detail from a box provided to spectators (the materials are exquisite and elegant; Dan's association with Theory11 gives you an idea of the production values). And then there's this black, index-sized card pictured here: all I'll say is that it started this way, and became something else, and is, once again as it appears here, but may not remain so. It's a piece of real magic.
There's something else special about The Magician Online that bears noting: like Dunninger's use of radio, Dan has figured out ways to exploit the virtual format that makes the experience incredibly powerful.
Like all of Dan White's shows, tickets to this are hard to come by. Get them if you can!
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