So I don't want to tell you too much about the elephant, or the brick, or the boat, or the moment in the film when you can see a familiar audience member's hand shaking with emotion. But I knew essentially nothing when I first saw it except that it was kind of magic-adjacent and several people I trusted had recommended it. I don't mean to stall with the basics I want to describe the show to you, because of how badly I want to persuade you to watch the film. I know both sequences have earthly explanations, but I don't need them. I don't want people to tell me their guesses. I have tried not to make too many guesses. I don't understand - at all - how either was done. I might describe it as a series of vignettes, punctuated by some basic sleight-of-hand, some card tricks, and two of the most extraordinary audience-involved sequences I ever expect to see. Those things are all technically true, but they're desperately incomplete. You'll hear In & Of Itself referred to as conceptual magic or interactive theater or a one-man show. well, he's a storyteller, and he's a performer, and he's a magician. And they've managed to do something that's always hard with filmed theater and seemed like it was going to be almost impossible here: They've made this version feel very, very much the way one of the most powerful theatrical experiences I've ever had felt when I was in the room.ĭelGaudio is. Now, a filmed adaptation is available on Hulu. I ultimately saw the show one more time with a friend in January 2018 (that time, I believe I chose 'I AM a gamechanger' or something), because I couldn't bear that no one I was close to had seen it and could talk about it with me.

That Moment When by Derek Murphy