How to be a part of a magician’s Inner Circle
A review of Asi Wind’s Inner Circle.
A good magician will wow you with their tricks. A great magician will tell a story or provoke thought while wowing you with their tricks. Like all great magicians, Asi Wind is as masterful a storyteller as he is at trickery, sleight of hand, and illusions. Okay, well maybe his magic exceeds his storytelling but only because his magic is exceptional. It’s also beautiful, humorous, and confounding.
David Blaine presents Asi Wind’s Inner Circle is as entertaining a show as they come (Wind is chief consultant to Blaine and is Blaine’s favorite magician). Wind performs close-up magic, where the tricks are performed in an intimate setting. In this case, he sits at a round table surrounded by about ten people. The rest of the audience sits in a semi-circle around the small theater stadium-style, allowing you to see those on the opposite side of the theater, which adds to the intimacy.
It’s a friendly setting and best if you go in with an open mind and a playful attitude because you might be asked to participate. Certainly, if you’re at table seats you will be in the show, and people pay a premium for the pleasure. Before anything begins, an usher hands out blank playing cards on which every single audience member writes their first name and last initial. These are collected and handed to Wind.
He uses this unorthodox deck throughout the show, eschewing traditional cards. The less you know about what comes next, the better. Surely, it will be different for every audience, and that’s what is so special about shows like this that utilize the audience. Wind does not trick the audience, he invites them to play with him. I have seen many masterful magicians perform and few have created such a personal experience as Wind has.
It helps that Wind has such a friendly, easy-going demeanor, and an incredible poker face that allows him to fly under the radar. He’s able to coax things out of a person that truly surprises them. He disarms the audience and endears them to him by weaving in stories of himself as a young man, performing magic first in the streets of Tel Aviv, where he was born, and then New York City, his adopted home. He tells stories of his mentors. He gets personal, which helps the audience feel relaxed and open.
I’ve been telling just about everyone I know to go see Asi Wind’s Inner Circle because, no matter how jaded you are, everyone should get to experience the childlike wonder of witnessing a magic trick and having absolutely no idea how it was achieved.
You can find discount tickets at TodayTix and Goldstar. There are also student rush tickets for $42 available at the box office one hour before each performance.
