‘Elephant Room’: Do you believe in magic?

The most magical place in Washington, according to traveling magicians Dennis Diamond, Louie Magic and Daryl Hannah (no, not that one), is a dingy waterfront bar in the Channel Inn. When they sidle up to the bar, their favorite bartender makes a round of shots appear.

The drinks are just the first of many things to materialize over the course of the evening. Next come half-dollar coins that fly from Magic’s hands into my closed fists. Then foam balls, cards and a puff of smoke that furls up to the ceiling from my pressed-together palms. After that, a giraffe-shaped balloon animal, a 15-foot-long streamer that gets coughed up from Magic’s mouth and, finally, an explosion of confetti.

Loading...

Comments

• Weigh In
• Corrections?

Personal Post

Yet the magicians’ appearance this week in the District in the show “Elephant Room” — their first theatrical performance and the first show of its kind at the Arena Stage — may leave them disillusioned with their audience.

“D.C.’s got more tricks than we’ve got. It’s full of deception. That’s why people appreciate it here,” Magic said. “We know there are people coming to the show looking for tips — politicians, looking for tricks.”

“Elephant Room” is a magic show in that it contains grand illusion and sleight of hand, but it’s also a theatrical experience. As the magicians do their tricks, we learn about what brought them here, to Arena Stage and to this point in their lives — tough childhoods, bad luck in love, spiritual awakenings. These personal transformations imbue their onstage transformations with a higher significance.

“If you endow [the trick] with a simple meaning, saying, ‘Isn’t this just like life, how one thing transforms into another, or we lose things?’ you give meaning to the effect,” Diamond said.

“You have to manifest your own magic in your own life,” Hannah said.

But like so many others who come to Washington, these magicians aren’t necessarily who they appear to be.

Different paths

The magicians took to their craft in different ways. Diamond, who dresses in custom-made, elaborately embroidered sparkly jackets with the occasional Nehru collar, says he grew up a lonely kid in San Bernadino, Calif., learning magic tricks after he saw a show by grand illusionist Doug Henning, and later going on to work for Carnival Cruises.

Hannah, who sports a mullet and a moustache, says he got into magic later in life, after his marriage fell apart and his wife took his daughter, Montana (yes, Montana Hannah — no, not inspired by that other one). He studied magic from a Native American tribe in Arizona and specialized in tricks with birds until he became allergic. He also went to Alcoholics Anonymous, and he credits that and magic with helping him get his life back together.

Louie Magic, who learned his first magic trick at 10, uses sleight of hand to aid him in romantic endeavors. When we sat down at the Channel Inn, he asked me if I have a boyfriend.

“I’m Louie Magic, Ladies’ Man of Magic,” he said. “I just want to know what the territory is. I’m not coming on to you or anything, I want to be respectful of your boyfriend, or whatever.”