Asi Wind performing his close-up magic, joined by spectators, at the Gym at Judson.
Asi Wind’s new close-up magic show, Inner Circle, may be the perfect antidote to the midwinter blahs. Wind, a master magician, eschews tricks with traditional playing cards by using ones that hold a mirror up to his audience—patrons write their names with a red or black Sharpie on blank-faced playing cards of standard size and texture, which, once collected, become his single deck for the evening. Wind believes that by having his audience members personalize each card, it makes them one audience before the show begins.
The cards also allow Wind to easily connect and bond to spectators. Or, as he puts it at the opening of his show, “You are the DNA of tonight’s show. The cards on the table represent every one of you. I will use them tonight and only tonight.”
Wind invites audience members to create a personalized deck of cards for his new show, Inner Circle. Photographs by Joan Marcus.
Wind, 43 and elegantly dressed in a black suit, is both host and trickster during the evening, which is directed by John Lovick and produced by renowned magician David Blaine. Wind invites spectators to join him at the round table on stage or in the tiered rows of seats that curve around the playing area like a mini-amphitheater (superbly designed by Adam Blumenthal), ensuring that nobody is too far from the action.
Patrons don’t need special gear to watch Wind perform. There is no sword-swallowing, no catching bullets with his teeth, or any Harry Houdini–like escapes. Although in his 2013 Off-Broadway show, Concert of the Mind, Wind employed Rubik’s cubes and other manipulatives, Wind’s only tool in Inner Circle is the deck of cards created by the audience.
Since the element of surprise is key to this intimate performance, suffice it to say that little will be revealed here about the particularities of each maneuver. But Wind’s real ace in the hole is that he doesn’t try to bowl over his audience with his magic skills. In fact, he claims that he’s not doing magic at all. Still, many jaws may hit the floor after some of his maneuvers—and there may be ear-to-ear smiles as well.
“Wind is a natural raconteur. And he intersperses his magic tricks with self-deprecating jokes and amusing anecdotes.”
Wind wastes no time in getting down to business after he introduces himself. He picks a card from the deck, reads it aloud, and asks who it belongs to. On the night I attended it was a woman named Abby Snoddy, seated to his immediate right at the round table. So he handed her the card, and prompted her through a series of measured directions that seemed to ensure that her personalized card was buried deep in the deck. Then he asked her to pick any card from the stack, and when she did—presto—it turned out to be hers. As she looked at Wind with a bemused expression, he teasingly scolded her: “It’s not your show. Don’t do that.”
Wind is a natural raconteur. And he intersperses his magic tricks with self-deprecating jokes and amusing anecdotes about some peak and not-so-peak moments of his career to date. For instance, he says he was born Asi Betesh in Holon, a city near Tel Aviv, and that when he was 21, he came to New York and fell head over heels in love with the Big Apple. He tore up his return ticket to Israel and adopted Gotham as his new home. But making a new life was a tough go at first. He started doing walkaround magic for tips just south of the fountain in Washington Square Park. Although he expected that his magic skills would catch fire with the downtown crowd, he failed abysmally. Or, as he bluntly puts it: “The fountain was making more money than I was.”
Wind confides to the audience that magic isn’t easy to pull off, and that it takes many years of study and practice to become a master of the art. In fact, he insists that he’s not pursuing fame or trying to fool people when he performs: “It’s not about magic. It’s about connecting to people through magic.”
Although Wind isn’t a household name like David Copperfield or Blaine, he has gained a reputation among his peers as a “magician’s magician.” He wraps up his show by paying tribute to his mentors in his craft, notably Houdini. Wind wistfully says: “He understood that it’s not enough to fool people with magic. You have to make them care.”
David Blaine’s production of Asi Wind’s Inner Circle plays at the Gym at Judson Theatre (243 Thompson St.) through April 2. Evening performances are at 7 p.m. on Thursday and Sunday; and at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday; matinees are at 4 p.m. Sunday. For tickets and information, visit asiwind.com or telecharge.com.
