Magic Play – Bewley’s Cafe Theatre – Review
by Frank L.

August 21st – Sept 9th, 2023 At 1pm
Written by Liam Wilson Smyth (From a story by Paul Meade)

Paul Meade, one of the founders of Guna Nua Theatre Company 25 years ago, states in the programme notes they “had a dream of a theatre where everyone had a voice and where collaboration could create a kind of alchemy that would result in theatrical magic”. Meade previously worked on the idea of “a play about a frustrated magician stranded in Bewley’s”. However, the Project had stalled until he met Liam Wilson Smyth, crucially a magician as well as a writer/actor.

Alistair Caspar (Liam Wilson Smyth) is a magician who has come to the end of his career and this show in Bewley’s is his final time on stage. Not only has his career gone poorly but his love life has collapsed. One of Caspar’s problems is that he does not believe in magic himself. He has learnt how to do magic tricks but he knows that they are not magic at all but sleight of hands learnt as techniques to give an onlooker the illusion of magic. What was magic in his life was and is Claire (Molly Downey) who appears in the play as a voiceover. He longs to have her back in his life and sets up a madcap scheme to stalk her to be blunt and then, as if by magic, lure her back.

What makes the play intriguing is that Caspar interacts by performing tricks. For his first trick, he produces a red handkerchief out of nowhere! He then, like many magicians on a stage, asks a member of the audience to participate in the performance of a trick. He does this several times and uses more than once the magician’s stock in trade, a deck of cards. All the time there are voiceovers from Mick (Samuel Coyle) and Moving Man (Enda Kilroy) who are critical players in the madcap scheme to woo Claire back into his life. This creates an incredulity of a different type.

This production has a substantial amount of diverse material, which is difficult to wedge into a lunchtime theatre performance. Smyth manages to keep these elements in balance even if at times it feels a little bit wobbly.  He creates a sense of wonderment on stage as he describes the mess of his life while he skillfully co-opts members of his audience into his world of “magic”.  Smyth along with his director, Paul Meade, create a moment of “theatrical magic”, as Meade set out to do all those years ago.

CAST AND CREW:

PERFORMED BY: Liam Wilson Smyth
DIRECTOR: Paul Meade
SET & COSTUME DESIGN: Alessandro Molina
LIGHTING DESIGN: Colm Maher
PHOTOGRAPHY: Paul McCarthy