The Illusion - Play

The Illusion begins when a guilt-ridden father visits a hermetic sorcerer to discover the fate of his run-away son. The father swears that no price is too high. As a successful lawyer he is accustomed to paying for services with the abundance of his wealth. But! That is not the medium in which sorcerer’s trade . . .

Instead the sorcerer conjures improbable yet captivating visions from the son’s vagabond life. The father meanwhile is held helplessly hostage; a powerless audience to the procession of scenes — all transmuted by the sorcerer’s touch. Though each contains his son’s fantastical love pride and daring they also grow more dangerous and the father begins to fear their lesson is only the regret we learn — again and again — in the repeated footsteps of a hearse.

The lawyer’s profession — like the sorcerer’s like the playwright’s — requires the alchemical enunciation of magic words arranged in oh-so-particular ways. Such words have the power to judge or forgive channel or change begin stories or end them. Will the father remember this power in time? He is more than just a passive spectator of the ritual stew of dramas from his son’s tragic life; he is an active ingredient — even as it slowly frightfully simmers towards the ending he has forgotten he paid for . . .

Oh yes my dears The Illusion is theatre at its most delightful! Entertaining witty fast-paced and provocative Tony Kushner’s adaptation of Pierre Corneille’s 17th century comedy revels in the magic which unites the alchemist’s world with our own. Stupefied as we all are by the never-ending spectacle which has come to dominate our daily lives we often fail to see that all power is merely a kind of performance. Theatre is the playful logic of that power and if you feel like you’ve been needing a reminder of or initiation to its inimitable magic then come participate in The Illusion and be sated.

We’ll forgive you ahead of time for forgetting you have the stage . . .

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