THE HANGOVER REPORT – Mentalist Derren Brown once again has my head buzzing with the Broadway edition of SECRET

Derren Brown in "Secret" at the Cort Theatre. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Derren Brown in “Secret” at the Cort Theatre. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Earlier this week, the Broadway edition of British mentalist Derren Brown’s Secret opened at the Cort Theatre. I had seen the show when it played Off-Broadway more than two years ago at the Linda Gross Theatre, courtesy of the Atlantic Theater Company.  I’m happy to relay to you that the show has lost none of its head-buzzing astonishment at its markedly larger Broadway home, where it has settled in for a limited run through January.

It’s a testament to Mr. Brown’s talent for creating intimacy, as well as his deceptively keen knowledge of the human mind – skills that were somehow less apparent Off-Broadway – that the show works as well as it does on the Great White Way. Watching him have the entire theater at the palm of his hands (particularly impressive given the Cort’s vertical seating layout, complete with two balconies) is fascinating to behold. At the press performance I attended, we were instructed by Mr. Brown not to disclose in our reviews any details regarding the show’s parade of increasingly breathtaking “tricks”. All I’ll say is that I once again marveled at how masterfully Mr. Brown plays the audience, particularly one comprised primarily of jaded, hard-to-impress New Yorkers.

Ultimately, it’s the tasteful way in which he weaves his trickery within the context of our shared human experience that sets the show apart from other, more unintentionally banal magic/illusionist/mentalist shows I’ve seen. As with the Off-Broadway mounting at the Atlantic, Secret has been directed with elegance by the duo of Andy Nyman and Andrew O’Connor, who have staged the production on a nearly naked stage. Indeed, the staging’s unassuming sensibility aligns beautifully with Mr. Brown’s appealing, semi-self deprecating (and very British) persona; both invite us in warmly and casually only to blow our minds – at times cathartically – time and time again.

RECOMMENDED

 

DERREN BROWN: SECRET
Broadway, Play/Performance
Cort Theatre
2 hours, 30 minutes (with one intermission)
Through January 4

Categories: Broadway, Theater

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