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Rainpan 43: Elephant Room

Rainpan 43: Elephant Room video still

In this uproarious love letter to the world of magic, three deluded illusionists are living their off-center lives by sleight of hand. How long can that last? These three world-class tricksters—stage names Louie Magic, Dennis Diamond, and Daryl Hannah—perform magic that functions and fools just fine, until the tricksters begin to fall apart. The more they posture and hide behind their smoke and mirrors, the more they reveal their vulnerability, and the harder we laugh. The off-the-wall comedy takes place on a set every bit as outrageous and surreal as the show requires (and really too wonderfully bizarre to be adequately explained here).

Louie Magic: I'm Louie Magic, known as the ladies man of magic, this is my partner . . .

Darryl Hannah: I'm Darryl Hannah, the used-to-be master of birds but no longer, just Darryl Hannah.

LM: And our third partner in – partners in crime is the infamous Dennis Diamond, who I'm sure you all know. Unfortunately he couldn't be with us today to talk about Elephant Room, our new show. It's coming to you very soon.

DH: Do you know if Houdini ever went – he must have gone to Chicago?

LM: Oh Houdini went through Chicago all the time. I think that's where he got frozen under the ice.

I’ve never been to Chicago and most excited for the deep dish –

DH: – deep dish –

LM: – deep dish pizza.

DH: I love deep dish pizza.

LM: Think it's Friday night, Saturday night, Thursday night, whatever night. You're like, "What am I gonna do tonight?" Well, what is Elephant Room have to offer you?

We’ve got magic –

DH: Magic.

LM: – great music

DH: B: great music; that's "B."

LM: – awesome dancing, unexpected mystery –

DH: Didn't see that coming, no.

We also have, we also have –

LM: Those are four solid things –

DH: Streamers.

LM: – that you can't get in any other shows.

DH: There's card tricks. That's some of it.

LM: We have something unique.

DH: What's that?

LM: There are no—mark my words—no trio magician troops.

DH: They don't exist. Think about it, you got Siegfried and Roy.

LM: Duo.

DH: You got –

Both: Penn and Teller.

DH: I was gonna say –

LM: Duo.

DH: – Daryl Hall and John Oates but they're not magicians, but – that almost came out.

LM: But it's kind of like magic.

DH: But Penn and Teller. Who else is a duo?

LM: Can you name another a trio? Hard pressed to do it. So we thought

here’s the time.

DH: Unless Chicago has – does Chicago have any

trio of magicians?

LM: No.

DH: I think not.

LM: And we're ready now for Chicago.

DH: This is our first museum, yeah, this will be our first museum. Like we've never done a museum before and I'm really excited because I just, what we're trying to work out with them as a kind of like installation side to it as well.

LM: He's been practicing his painting, his oil painting.

DH: Yeah, cuz I do a little bit of oil painting on side. I've got – I build my own frames out of found objects, but I also – we've been working on kind of like those still, street performer things where they're just like and you put a quarter in and then you like –

LM: But we want to do it with magic, so for example, watch the ring, here's something unbelievable, watch right here. I can actually [tongue snap] toss the ring.

DH: Get outta town.

LM: Right back on. It's pretty unbelievable, like how did that happen?

DH: Just get on a bus, pay the fare, and get out of here.

LM: I'll show you how I did it. Not really. Here, hold the ring. I brought with me this. You know these are? Handy-dandy scissors.

DH: Magic scissors?

LM: Watch [tongue snap]. Just like that I can cut the rope and create the illusion. It's just an illusion of two pieces – would you say that looks like two pieces?

DH: Yes.

LM: Ooh you're seeing double it's just an illusion. I know you're like, "That looks so real!" It's not. Let me show you why. If I line up the ends of the rope, the big piece and the little piece –

DH: Yeah?

LM: – and blow on it so there's a little piece and a big piece?

DH: Yeah, do it. Stretch it!

LM: Stretch it out, so now I have – that's right, two, count them, two equal pieces of rope. Did you see that? I'm just kidding. It's all in the ends. It's really just one solid piece. That's a little misdirection.

DH: Aww! Are you following Chicago?

LM: High five, dude.

DH: Whoo!

LM: That was awesome.

DH: That's what we're going to bring to your amazed faces.

LM: So that's another example.

So now, at that point you're like, "Now what's going to happen? Now what's going to happen?"

DH: No idea.

You know what I also feel like there is? There’s good fun.

LM: There's good fun.

DH: Yeah. That's how we . . .

LM: Awesome.

DH: Elephant Room, MCA, Chicago, America, nine double 0; what's the zip code?

Interviewer: 60611

Both: 60611

DH: Right there, baby!

DH: Some of this – sometimes in the back – I don't want to mess up my mic cord here. You see this? These are some of the filming things that they're using to help see what's going on but you just have to go up to this and pull the light right off.

[gagging noises]

Just goes like that. Alright. Anyway.

LM: It's a light snack.

DH: It's a light snack? That's awesome dude! I'm going to use that in my show. That's awesome, "It's a light snack."