A good magician, if you think about it well, offers his audience a fantasy about control. If you can simply conjure up things and make it disappear again, and the laws of nature can also defy in other ways, you are immune to a certain extent for the tragedies of life: the pain of loss, for example, or the grind of predictability.
The makers of The biggest magic show, The new youth theater performance of De Toneelmakerij, have understood that. In a typical magician decor – a kind of old -fashioned fairground attraction with yellow curtains and painted walls – the young Domingo (José Montoya) welcomes us to the spectacle that he and his little brother Caspaar (Serge Hogenbirk) have in store for us. After the first tricks, there is soon a deeper tragedy under the show. The father of the family has left, the mother is often ‘sad’ and the middle brother Thomas died shortly after birth – or, as the brothers were told: disappeared.
Soon you get the feeling that the fanaticism with which Domingo in particular approaches magicians is a way to get a grip on that grief. His control drift also focuses on his younger brother, whom he directs tightly and from whom he does not tolerate mistakes. Montoya and Hogenbirk sharp and accurately put down the dynamics of Bravoure and Machtsstrijt and the underlying vulnerability of the children, so you soon feel with them. The magic tricks themselves also contribute to the story in the direction of Paul Knieriem: they are just good enough to give you the image that the children have practiced diligently on it.
If Domingo Caspaar accidentally uses the place where everything that disappears ends up, the show drives a magical-realistic layer. Of course, Caspaar besides a lost sock and spaghetti spoon also bumps into Thomas. Fortunately, the makers here do not present unbelievable Happy End with a moving reunion between the three brothers, but they opt for a bittersweet plot twist that leaves the unruly relationship between Domingo and Caspaar intact. It produces a abrasive latest scene, which is more likely to remind of classic dark youth films in terms of tone Time Bandits and The Dark Crystal Then to the reassuring return of the safe reality that you often encounter in the youth theater.
However, that original turn does the makers make a problem: how do you put an end to it? They don’t get out of it completely, and solve it by falling out of their role and immediately giving the audience some philosophical thoughts. Fortunately, it should not print the fun too much: after applause, the children in the audience grab the opportunity to just go around in the decor, and so to contain how all that speech put together. The need to get a grip on reality is also universal at the age of six.