Review: “The House Of Ghostly Haunts”

Cardone revives the forgotten genre of spook shows, combining his superb magic skills with much less impressive scares.

On a single night of October 30th, Dixon Place hosted Cardone’s spook show The House of Ghostly Haunts. Pumped by the Halloween spirit and seduced by the over-the-top language of the show description, I was intrigued by the combination of magic and horror. As a magic show, The House of Ghostly Haunts delivers. The charisma and skill of Cardone, our host of multiple magic talents, are truly remarkable. But the spooky component would benefit from further development.     

Marlena Dee and Cardone in The House of Ghostly Haunts. Photo by @cardonemagic.

Spook shows, originated by magician Elwin-Charles Peck in the 1930s, added a flair of entertainment to the once popular spiritual sciences. Unlike the charlatan mediums at the turn of the 20th century, Peck didn’t try to convince his patrons that they were communicating with the deceased. He demonstrated the same illusions but in a different context. Instead of empty promises to summon the dead, he delivered an evening of sheer entertainment, with some mysterious overtones.       

Taking the baton from his predecessor, Cardone revives the genre of the spook show in his entertaining and family-friendly evening of wonders and scares. With mustache curled and a lavish black-and-gold jacket, he bedazzles the audience right away. The magician’s nonchalant demeanor is peppered with the grand gestures of a circus master of ceremonies. In the beginning he unveils his plan for the finale by taking the cover off of a full-sized guillotine, and then gradually builds up the thrill of danger throughout the evening.

To quote Cardone’s ornate opening: “Some of the things you will see are real and dangerous. Some are happening only in your imagination. And sometimes you won’t know the difference”. I certainly wasn’t able to tell the difference in a lot of cases. Even when I was brought up on stage to assist and had a chance to watch the magician up close while performing a trick of swallowing razor blades.

In Cardone’s broad repertoire, the most exciting tricks continue the overarching theme of danger. The feeling of concern adds to the curiosity during the swallowing of razor blades or bleach, the straight-jacket escape or the guillotine illusion. The magician masterfully builds up suspense, occasionally mixing pathos with humor. A lot of the jokes are about his concern about messing up his perfect Elvis-style pompadour.

Mentalism, ventriloquism, and close-up magic are only a few of the skills that Cardone possesses. But although variety is impressive, sometimes less is more. It's like the difference between an all-you-can-eat buffet and an upscale restaurant: you can gorge until you burst or savor every note of a curated experience. The House of Ghostly Haunts lingers somewhere in between, but has the full potential to be Michelin star-worthy (or whatever is the equivalent in the world of magic and entertainment). The scale is also an issue: some of the smaller cards and mentalism tricks drown in the large theater.

Cardone does a good job presenting most tricks and even shares a couple of trade secrets. It doesn’t spoil the magic at all, but actually makes you feel like an accomplice. The interaction with the audience (some of which is or feels improvised) is sincere and very engaging. Despite his bad-ass punk rock poise (or maybe because of it), Cardone is especially good with kids.

The showing of a private collection of curiosities, which includes the two-headed vampire bat, a rock from castle Dracula, and a shrunken head, provides a nice change of pace. The demonstration of each object is accompanied by the story of how it was acquired. The face of the proud collector lights up as he shows each object to the audience, now standing around him on stage.

Less successful is the “haunted house” style finale. For the duration of several long minutes, the audience observes floating fluorescent characters enter and glide along the stage, occasionally yelling “Boo!” The parade of evil spirits is supposedly a tribute to Peck’s original spook show, but unless you are in the first row, it doesn’t work as currently staged. The House of Ghostly Haunts, while being a potent magic show, should learn a few theatrical “tricks” in order to become a truly great experience.

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(The House of Ghostly Haunts played at Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street, on October 30, 2018. The running time was 1 hour 30 minutes with one intermission. Tickets were $30; $20 for students/seniors and before Sept 30. For more information, visit dixonplace.org.)

The House of Ghostly Haunts is created and performed by Cardone. Produced by Dixon Place and Vaudevisuals.

This review was published on theasy.com on 11.5.

Review: "The Group"

Katie Green and Michael Rau’s support group for fictional survivors and their dead.

“My dear James. I wasted most of myself on the things that didn’t matter. But the thought that I left a mark on your life is strangely comforting. I love you. I only wish I had said it to you more often.”

This is what I would have written to my husband. But I can’t because I am dead. And I am stuck in purgatory, which looks like a support group for the dead. We talk about our living counterparts and share thoughts on the afterlife. At times it’s unbearable and painful, at times it’s boring, and at times it’s amusing and insightful. But overall the talking’s been instrumental in moving on. Who would’ve thought that the dead grieve, too?

More than anything it was gratifying to become Olivia, a fictional character that I invented for The Group, an interactive theatrical experience co-designed and facilitated by Michael Rau and Katie Green. This LARP (Live Action Role Playing) experience pairs the audience members according to their preferences on what type of relationships they would like to explore. Spouses, siblings, and creative partners are amongst eleven options on a character sheet offered to each upon entry. During the orientation session, facilitators Michael and Katie — soon to become the siblings “Brian” and “Julia” — introduce the rules and safety instructions. (The participants are discouraged from working on real active grief within this theatrical setting but even fictional grief can be difficult to handle.)

The Group is a part of Reimagine: End of Life festival, a week-long series of talks, performances and other events dedicated to the exploration of death. Considering the heavy weight of the topic, it is hardly a lightheartedly entertaining piece. But it is perfect for those who would like to explore the loss and grief in the “safe container of fictional relationship,” as Katie puts it. Both the generous three-hour timeframe and intimate size of the audience (up to 14 people) provide the perfect conditions to take a journey within.

The atmosphere feels trustworthy and safe throughout the entire experience. The creators equip the participants with a few tools of distancing themselves from the happening and of voicing their concerns if need be. The audience is also told the order of the events in advance, so there are no surprises. First, the collaborative building of the relationship takes place in pairs, prompted by a questionnaire. Each pair consists of the dead and the living. Separated after the characters’ building session, they go to their respective support groups; one for the deceased and one for the grieving survivors, although physically they sit in one circle, circumscribed by Christmas lights.

First, the survivors have their session led by “Julia,” grieving for her brother, “Brian.” Draped with a black shawl and wearing rubber gloves, indicating my state as a deceased, I have no say in this meeting. There is a protocol to interrupt my significant other with a short remark if I have an absolute urge, but only the other dead members can hear me. So here I sit, marinating in my own sorrow, tears, and other people’s pain as Julia gently guides people through their emotions.

Naturally, the hunger for stories suppresses grief in some and they start asking others about their fictitious lives and relationships. But it’s not easy to invent details on the fly without disturbing your emotional state, so the moderator veers the curious away from this path. The Group, after all, is about and for each individual. Theatricality, storytelling, and performance are dialed down greatly, which frees the participants from a lot of pressure.

Many details of personal lives remain hidden to the eyes of other members of the group. But there is something bittersweet in sharing a large part of the relationship narrative only with your partner. Because we can’t communicate with the other world directly, much of the work of the grief happens inside our minds.

The dead have their own support group session, which immediately follows the meeting of the living. The lighting shifts from a bright glow to a moody reddish twilight, indicating the change of the setting. Brian, Julia’s dead brother, reads the rules from his notepad regarding being respectful of others and not taking up too much space.

The chosen format of a support group restricts movement and forces participants to focus on words and emotions rather than actions. The rubber gloves are offered as a means to change a perception the body. “The dead have no sense of touch,” Bruce instructs me as I put them on, hesitant at first. But as the experience goes on, I find that I keep my eyes closed often during meetings with the living to make the separation more tangible. I noticed others did as well. (I envision there may be other potential options for sensory deprivation for the dead participants, like asking them to close their eyes or having them wear dark sunglasses to further enhance the experience of being separate from their physical bodies.)

The Group is firmly built on rules and generously cushioned with care. It is tactfully executed and tastefully designed, thanks to the combined theatre and counseling experience of the authors. It is a safe environment to talk about death and loss, a dialogue lacking in modern secular society, that may prove to be therapeutic, even though the participants are working through fictional grief. Instead of focusing on staying forever young, maybe we should pause and reflect on the inevitable more often?

The experience is also very life-assuring. Being dead for three hours allowed me to appreciate being alive and grateful for the opportunity to be able to communicate my feelings and thoughts to others. As for those who have already left this world, I hope whatever it is on the other side, it is at least as comforting as The Group was for me.

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The Group has concluded; learn more about Reimagine: End of Life andTwin Alchemy Collective.

[This Review was published on NoProscenium.com on 10.30]

Review: “Sex Status 2.0”

It seems appropriate that Sex Status 2.0, conceived and directed by Carrie Ahern, takes place in the privacy of an apartment. Inspired by Simone De Beauvoir’s literary opus The Second Sex, this intimate, site-specific dance piece reflects on womanhood at large through the prism of the individual’s experiences. As a part of the creative process, the performers (Carrie Ahern, Carolyn Hall, Kelly Hayes, Donna Costello, Elke Rindfleisch, Jennifer Chin and Anne Parichon) were to “question” their bodies about the relevance of those lived experiences. For the most part they found that despite the significant progress of gender equality since The Second Sex was published in 1949, it still resonates today.

The topic of gender continues even as frivolously dressed ladies, from early 20th century French posters, wink at me from the bathroom walls. I spot a mop in the corner; I have the same one at home. Only mine, instead of cleaning dust, is collecting it. Along with five other audience members out of twenty four, I find cleaning tedious, which is revealed in a survey during the performance. The audience was evenly distributed between men and women, and the performance seems to be created for both. The 20 multiple-choice questions often come in pairs, like “Do you seek validation for cleaning?” and “Do you seek validation for sex?” but it did not feel pointed towards a particular sex.

The opening choreographic sequence also explores parallels between sex and cleaning, two “activities” traditionally attributed to women. Scattered around the room, seven dancers scrub the surfaces with various parts of their bodies, some of them achieving a near orgasmic state, while others bring themselves to complete frustration.The chorus emits moans and monosyllabic exclamations communicating the ramping complex sensations, each performer tangled in her own story.

The questionnaire about cleaning and sex preferences tries to rationalize these experiences. But how telling the data may be remains a question in and of itself. Whether a mockery or a part of Ahern’s continuing research, the survey brings the audience, seated along the perimeter of the room, closer together. After a few shared laughs, the individual bubbles are broken and we feel freer to meet eyes with the performers when their siren gazes call for it or to engage in physical interactions.

At some point I am asked to rub any part of my exposed skin against any part of the exposed skin of one of the performers. Other people around me are prompted to other physical contact  like putting a palm on a performer’s bare neck or her belly. Touch, both observed and experienced, is a big part of Sex Status 2.0. Of all the senses, it grounds us in the moment the most and turns our attention to our own bodies. The soft, enveloping lighting, by Jay Ryan, creates a warm and safe atmosphere for sharing and self-observation regardless of the gender.

The hysterical agony of the “cleaning” opening scene is sharply contrasted with the playful exploration of each other’s physicality in a scene resembling nymphs dancing in the woods. Sex Status 2.0 revises the ways in which women are perceived in Western culture without criticizing or dismissing but layering on top of them instead. Gentle vocalizing by Starr Busby (author of the original music for the piece), has a dialogue with the choreography throughout, highlighting the complexity of the topic.

The performance ends on an enigmatic image of women seated on the floor, their white shirts flipped and buttoned on the back. Like some mythological toads, they swiftly catch invisible objects in the air and plant them in their mouths. Awash with uncanny colored lights (another smart lighting design effect), the performers look alien. Starting as a sociological project, the performance slowly transitions into the poetical and even philosophical plane, culminating in this strong, haunting finale. Beauvoir’s opening question, “Are there even women?”, is especially poignant embodied in the this closing image.  

Ahern plays with the social constructs associated with womanhood but ultimately encourages the audience to turn the attention inwards and ask their bodies to guide them through the journey of gender. Cleaning and sex used to be seen as services that women provide to men. Here they are offered as tools of self-exploration. Cleaning puts the body in close relationship with the space. The mindful physical contact helps to connect to the other and, hence, the self.                  

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Sex Status 2.0 plays in three private apartments in Brooklyn and Manhattan through November 10th. Tickets are $25-$100 (sliding scale). Tickets and more information are available at sexstatus20-borrowedprey.nationbuilder.com.  

[This Review was published on NoProscenium.com on 10.29]