Event Listing - Theater

Fri Jun 5 - Sat Aug 15

EXIT Theatre Presents

Now and at the Hour

written and performed by Christian Cagigal

Tel. 1-800-838-3006
Website

Location

Date and Time

Exit Stage Left

156 Eddy St.
San Francisco, CA 94102
district: Union Square/San Francisco Centre

Fri Jun 5 (8:00-9:00pm) - no late seating

Sat Jun 6 (8:00-9:00pm) - no late seating

Fri Jun 12 (8:00-9:00pm) - no late seating

Sat Jun 13 (8:00-9:00pm) - no late seating

Fri Jun 19 (8:00-9:00pm) - no late seating

Show All Dates

Description

Back from New York in his new solo show, Christian Cagigal weaves magic, mindreading, storytelling and theatre into an intimate hybrid of personal stories and strange magical experiences you will not soon forget.

Christian Cagigal is among a new crop of illusionists and theatre artists that dares to go beyond the usual bag of tricks and bring you into a world of darkness, mystery and imagination. His work doesn't attempt to "Blow your brain" or "Freak your mind", but slowly seep into your subconscious until you have to ask the question, "This isn't real is it?"

"'Now and at the Hour' is a unique and genuine theatrical experience that should not be missed"
-NYtheatre.com

"The appearance of occult powers was strong enough to leave me feeling unsettled and slightly violated for the rest of the evening."
-SF Weekly

"His antics bespeak a certain creepiness albeit the kind that sends alternating shivers of delight and anxiety through the crowd."
-SF Station
(To read the full SFStation Review click or copy/paste here http://www.sfstation.com/now-and-at-the-hour-a19221 )

TOP PICKS for
SF Examiner
SF Bay Guardian
SF Weekly

Christian's first review from New York!

Now, and at the Hour
reviewed by Danny Bowes

Feb 28, 2009

Occasionally, when a critic needs to calm down a bit, he/she will describe a particularly talented performer as a "magician." Christian Cagigal actually is a magician, which would make that description a touch redundant, were it not an apt way to describe his virtuosic performance in his one-man show Now, and at the Hour, currently playing at the Red Room as part of the FRIGID Festival.

The show is equal parts magic show and autobiographical monologue, with Cagigal telling first the story of how his father came back from Vietnam a schizophrenic, and then how his father led him to discover magic. Some of his father's influence was his eccentricity—for instance, asking young Christian "What do you think about clairvoyance? how about time travel?"—but a much greater influence, sadly, were his father's frequent violent episodes, during which, as Cagigal says, "I would have to stay out of his way." This led to a great deal of time spent in his room perfecting card tricks and such.

Gradually, it becomes clear that the tricks performed have everything to do with the monologues, as each trick in some way deals with memory or clairvoyance, or turning back the clock. And the tricks truly are spectacular. Cagigal's skill will have skeptics nodding approvingly at his seamless execution, and the credulous convinced that he is, in fact, psychic (his mind-reading tricks are so well-done they're a bit unsettling).

To catalogue Cagigal's act would be to take a great deal of the mystery out of the performance, which is the most entertaining thing about the evening. Being a moderately cynical person with a great deal of interest in—and a bit of knowledge about—the way in which deception is employed for theatrical effect, I was very pleasantly surprised to see a show where I had absolutely no idea how Cagigal was doing what he was doing. Watching a mind-reading act, my default assumption is that the mind-reader somehow has some prior knowledge to work with. This assumption completely dissolved when my companion was selected as a volunteer for one such trick, and Cagigal promptly—and accurately—guessed the initials of the person she had been thinking of, about whom she'd said nothing.

Where Cagigal the magician is masterful, Cagigal the actor is no less so. The monologues are performed with much less flair and levity than the magic; appropriately, considering the harrowing content. When performing magic, he is quick, witty, charming, larger than life, and when telling the story of a sad, withdrawn boy practicing card tricks and writing in his journal in the park because he's scared to go home, Cagigal becomes much smaller, quieter, and melancholy. It is as if—apropos of a repeating theme throughout the show—he travels back in time to become that little boy again. The effect is dramatically powerful and emotionally devastating.

In spite of all this, the show is by no means a downer. The dazzling magic Cagigal performs, and its derivation from his needing something to keep the horrors of his childhood at bay, end up leaving the audience not necessarily believing in magic, but believing in the magic of the imagination. This is the writer-performer's goal, and he reaches it with style, dignity, and true artistry. Now, and at the Hour is a unique and genuine theatrical experience that should not be missed.

Written/created by: Christian Cagigal
Presented by EXIT Theatre

SF Weekly Review July 8, 2009 (Chris Jensen)

Calling it just a "magic show" doesn't seem quite right. Christian Cagigal's Now and at the Hour is part sleight of hand, part personal revelation, and part straight-up creepiness. Some magicians look and behave as if they belong on used-car lots, but not Cagigal — he's rumpled and affable, and it's a pleasure to let him snow you. At a recent performance, he chose me to participate in his first trick, a mind-reading exercise in which he seemed to pluck a fairly random and startlingly specific memory from my brain. I don't know how he managed to do it, but the appearance of occult powers was strong enough to leave me feeling unsettled and slightly violated for the rest of the evening. Between each bit of magic, he tells stories of growing up with his father, a Vietnam vet who suffered from schizophrenia; by show's end, you get the sense that learning the art of illusion was young Cagigal's way of exerting power over a messy reality. Magic is a lonely discipline, full of secrets — but here, at least, is a performer who managed to put all of his childhood loneliness to thrilling use.

SF Bay Guardian Review July 22, 2009 (Robert Avila)

Writer-performer Christian Cagigal has been studiously developing one or another version of a one-man show at the Exit Theatre around his serious chops as a magician. The shows are popular and long running in good part because Cagigal is a strong showman whose feats of "mind reading" are impressively perplexing. Now and at the Hour, his current and latest, is also his most successful attempt yet at blending consistently dumbfounding displays of prestidigitation and a dramatic narrative with a power of its own. Rushing onstage lugging two large suitcases—whose odd antique contents, swiftly unpacked and arranged by the performer, include an hourglass, a metronome, and a wooden view master—Cagigal launches into a fitful, melancholic rumination on time, memory, and the eternal return, grounded in his description of growing up with his father, a Spanish-born mentally disabled Vietnam vet, and his childhood retreat into imagination and solitary pursuit of the magician's craft. The story carries inherent force—in fact Cagigal the actor can push its emotional content unnecessarily hard—and provides an intriguing context and theme for the mischievous, truly wowing bits of audience-inducting magic he has concocted. The slightly bumpy transitions around these feats still present a dramatic challenge, but Cagigal is rapidly honing in on that magic moment when two distinct shows become an integrated whole.