Trick or Treat? On Derek DelGaudio’s ‘In & Of Itself’
One of the very first scenes of the opening episode of “Arrested Development” delivers one of the most enduring and definitional lines of the entire series. Aboard the family yacht, protagonist Michael Bluth is belittling his professional magician brother, Gob, for the act he’s insisting on performing, using some wildly overpriced set piece called the Aztec Tomb.
“So,” Michael says, “this is the magic trick?”
Gob looks annoyedly over Michael’s shoulder and snaps back at him.
“Illusion, Michael. A trick is something a whore does for money.”
The response encompasses all of the vulgarity, immaturity, even casual misogyny of Gob’s character. But it’s the reveal that comes next, as Michael nods to the side and the camera pans to show that Gob has delivered the retort in front of a bunch of children, that truly sets the tone for things to come. The humor is important, but more so is what his complete and utter self-centeredness in that moment revealed about not just Gob, but the sensibilities of the entire Bluth Family.
But we’re here today to talk about another magician. Or illusionist. Or…well…I guess that’s the point. Derek DelGaudio’s special on Hulu, “In & Of Itself,” leaves a great deal of confusion about exactly who he is, or is trying to be.
Perhaps you’ve been subjected to the same exhortations on social media as I was in recent weeks about the special: “Just watch it.”
Why, you may ask? What about “it” is compelling such a reaction? And why, as so many people have encouraged, should you watch it without knowing anything about it?
“It” evokes that feeling, in those that have seen it, because it’s hard to really talk about whatever “In & Of Itself” actually is with somebody who hasn’t seen it. Which, like so many other aspects of the production, is, in and of itself, a neat trick. If you’d like to watch it without learning more, feel free to come back to this later. Otherwise, I’ll see you after the break.
“In & Of Itself” is a magic show, full stop. That’s what it is. You can debate whether or not it’s something more than just a magic show, but, at its core, that’s all it is. If you do not want to watch a magic show, you probably should not watch it.
The biggest difference between DelGaudio’s work and other magic shows you may have seen is in the presentation. There is no booming music, no flashing lights and other distractions commonly found in magic shows. It is, by any measure, an astonishingly quiet production. And, most significantly, instead of relying on the sensory overload of the show to captivate your attention between reveals, DelGaudio uses emotional manipulation to engender sympathy for himself, to draw the audience in, to make them feel both seen and integral to the show itself.
Some background: The special was shot form a number of performances of the live, one-man show, which ran for 552 showings at a small theater in New York. Shots are stitched together to help show its progression, particularly through DelGaudio’s use of one audience member each show, whom he asks to leave before the end and take a book with them. Their charge is to fill in what they think the ending will be, then come back again the next day. They always return with the book, another entry added. It all lends an emotional continuity to the idea of communal discovery that threads through the entire show.
That show, as DelGaudio presents it, is one about identity. Both his, and the audience’s. He talks throughout about trying to discover himself, sharing bits about himself, including a sad story from his youth about feeling shame over a truth about which he had no control. He often appears on the brink of tears. There is the sense that he is on the precipice of his own self-discovery, something that no doubt has some effect on helping the audience let down its guard (never mind that he’s going through these motions every night). It’s all building toward something.
You may have heard about the letters. DelGaudio’s most impressive trick involves bringing an audience member on stage and having them choose from a stack of letters to read. He tells the audience member that letter will then transform into a letter from whatever relation they choose — mother, brother, friend — and has them read it out loud. The audience never sees the letter, just the person’s reaction and dictation, filled with personal details only that connection would know.
I’ll leave others to dive into how he pulls it off, whether through some sort of hypnosis or some other means. What’s important is the audience seeing the true emotion in their fellow audience member’s face. That’s the emotional hook for the whole show, the lynchpin to convince everyone that they are on some greater journey, together, with the performer.
It is, in fact, one hell of a trick. But is it all an illusion?
Magic isn’t, of course, magic. A reveal of any good magic trick stumps the audience, leaving them in awe, wondering how whatever they just witnessed was possible. That’s what magic is — hours upon hours upon hours of practice at a skill so that its execution appears to be something supernatural. But the process that creates that reveal is the inverse of that unknowable romanticism. It’s predicated on relentless preparation, on perfection of execution. It’s a finely honed professional skill, but its only real value is in its ability to deceive.
This is a reality DelGaudio has clearly struggled with. He describes himself as a wolf, then goes on to explain the years he spent learning how to shuffle cards into specific orders, including during poker games in which he was a mechanic, cheating his fellow players. There is some guilt in his admission, as though he’s looking for penance. Yet, all he really brings back to the audience is a display of the same mastery. Does all the practice and display of those skills add up to something better, something more noble in this setting? Will our validation, as the audience, make it so?
DelGaudio pushes this question to its extreme in his final trick. Each audience member, upon entering the theater where the special was shot, was asked to pick out a card with a descriptor they identified with: I Am _______. Those cards are stacked during the show, on the edge of a table on stage. At the show’s conclusion, DelGaudio goes one by one, around the theater, looking everyone in the eyes and telling them the card they picked.
Some people break down in tears. Others signal in various ways that they feel validated. The whole thing seems very personal, until you peel back the layers, until you remember that he’s a card mechanic, that if he can teach himself to remember exactly where 52 cards are as he’s shuffling them through the deck, that he can also remember the order of descriptors based on the seats everyone is in. It’s an extraordinary feat of memory, of preparation, of execution. But the only emotional aspect is what the audience assigns to it.
But after the childhood reveal, and the letters, and the crying, if you’ve allowed yourself to buy into the idea of magic-as-emotional-connection, you’re primed to embrace that you’ve been seen, exactly the way you want to be seen. That this is something more than a magic trick, something greater than a magic show.
In “Arrested Development,” it doesn’t really matter that Gob is a magician. At his core, he’s an asshole. It’s a show about assholes, made that way by money, who discover their humanity through their family. But “In & Of Itself” is definitionally a show about a magician. That is who DelGaudio is, at his center. The show is an expression of coming to terms with what that means.
Ultimately, DelGaudio seems desperate to prove that an entire lifetime of learning tricks — and, as he intimates, sometimes using them unethically to cheat people out of money — has been worth something more, has meant something greater than a simple repetition of trivial skills. It’s as if he’s ashamed to have come to the realization that he is, in fact, a magician, and that this show is some rebellion against that reality, some attempt to prove that what he does means more.
But is it? There’s emotional manipulation deployed to encourage you to believe so, but that’s just what it is — manipulation. A psychological sleight of hand is still a distraction to keep you from focusing on what’s actually happening, on the card mechanic’s manipulations. On the wolf.
If “Fight Club”-ian, you-are-not-your-job wisdom is a revelation you need in your life, then perhaps you will gain something out of the special. I’m certainly not trying to take that away from you.
But at the end of the day, “In & Of Itself” is still a magic show. Its greatest trick is the illusion that makes you believe it was more than that.
