- OTHER MEDIA
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- The Pandora Experiment by Christian Cagigal
- SF Bay Guardian October 31, 2007 (Robert Avila)
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- Remounting last summer's show, writer-performer Christian Cagigal again
takes over the Exit Café for an intimate evening of theater magic
— or is it magic theater? — set among the homey detritus of what
seems a vaguely spooky den (pleasingly arranged and lit by Amanda Ortmayer).
Music boxes, small and delicately embroidered pouches, tiny toy cars that
run (or stop, anyway) on their own willpower, and a hauntingly poised antique
porcelain doll in a rocker are a few of the more prominent fixtures in
Cagigal's shop of wonders. He presents them with a genial mixture of suave
assurance and giddy excitement, as if some attention-hungry, Ritalin-ready
inner child were due at any moment to burst through the showman's dapper
demeanor. Cagigal's feats of prestidigitation and mind reading — dastardly
clever in conception and confoundingly smooth in execution — keep
his audience riveted and actively engaged for two 45-minute acts. As an
attempt to blend the interactive ceremonies of the traditional magic act
with the full range of theatrical performance, however, The Pandora Experiment
is an admirable trial case that never coheres. Only at the end, when we
learn something of the fascinating genealogy of the performer and the intriguing
items arrayed in the room, does the potential for a séancelike meld
of dramatic circumstance and expert conjuring make its presence convincingly
felt.
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