Joan Marcus
This will, thanks to the wonder of magic, be a short article. To write too much about Asi Wind’s Inner Circle (presented by David Blaine; Gym at Judson, to Dec. 31) would mean spoiling it, or revealing too much. This is a show of magic tricks after all, played, as its title suggests, to an audience of just under 100 people in an intimate space specially designed by Adam Blumenthal within a much larger theater.
Wind sits at the center of a circular table, audience members occupying the other chairs. Then there are four tiers of seats with the rest of the audience rising in front of him, watching down from above. At the beginning we are asked to put our names and initials on playing cards (blank on one side), and that’s all this reviewer will say. From our names, Wind performs a set of ever more astonishing tricks.
Identity and the power of names give the show its meaning. The audience is immediately involved because one’s name could be mentioned by him or chosen by another audience member. As Wind says in the program, “You could be next!… People respond to their names. Names are powerful; think about how much your name means to you.” (His own birth surname is different to the one he has now, he says, and yes he has heard the name you see here said in many odd ways.)