Wind was sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park, a place that has a cameo in the show - a spectator is dispatched here to ask a stranger for a random number - and a key role in his origin story. “But if a spectator puts his name on that card, suddenly it is significant. “A playing card has information on it, but to most people, the six of hearts, for example, means nothing,” Wind said one recent afternoon. A card might start off as “Zach Alexander” then transform, in Zach’s hands, into “Rachel Silver.” Rachel may then open a sealed envelope she’s been guarding, only to find “Zach Alexander” inside. So every trick is performed with a deck missing any of the standard suits, faces or numbers, and that changes every night. The cards are then spread on a round table where Wind will sit and conjure his mischief. Before the action begins, ushers ask audience members to write their first and last names on blank-face playing cards that all have identical backs. Wind’s status as magic’s best-kept secret may end with “Inner Circle,” which is built around a simple, ingenious premise. “What interests him most is answering the question, ‘How can I make magic a great experience for my audience?’ That’s what he’s chasing.” “Fame is not his goal,” Blaine said in a phone interview. He does it with a combination of charm and humility that peers say is just one reason he ranks among the great magicians of our time. Suffice to say, the entire show revolves around a single deck of playing cards, and the cards behave in ways that defy reason and, occasionally, the laws of physics.īut Wind’s niftiest trick, honed over more than 20 years and thousands of private events, is his ability to eliminate any sense that he and his audience are locked in a contest. 1 - would spoil more than a few surprises and much of the fun. If he’d told us that we were all about to start floating around the room, half of the audience would have reached for a Dramamine and braced for lift off.ĭetailing what happens during this giddily mystifying 70-minute production - which opened last month and runs at the Gym at Judson, next to Washington Square Park in Manhattan, until Jan. By the time it was offered, Wind, a 43-year-old Israeli-born New Yorker with the effervescent wit of a good dinner party host and the cunning of a master jewel thief, had already pulled off so many seemingly impossible feats that only a sucker would have bet against him. There is little chance anyone took this whimsical disclaimer seriously. If it does, remember all the fun we had before.” “Every now and then, this fails,” said Asi Wind, pausing for a suspense-maximizing moment during his new one-man magic show, “Asi Wind’s Inner Circle.” “ This could fail.
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