Charlatan!

Travis Bernhardt—The Cinematheque

Three years ago I saw Travis Bernhardt do his Fringe magic show Unpossible, in which he did some pretty amazing tricks with decks of playing cards. In Charlatan he tries “something different.” He works off input from the audience throughout so each performance is also likely to vary significantly too. The first thing he did during the show I saw was to play off questions that audience members wrote on cards before the show began. This was the best part of the show, not so much because Travis was able to provide solid answers to the queries, but because of the funny things he was able to say in the moment. For the next part, he claimed to get sensations of various things in his mind – like certain animals or first names – and tried to elicit responses from the audiences. Some of these fell flat, with more than one suggestion not resonating with anyone, but he was entertaining enough to prevent things from becoming too awkward. As the show progressed, Travis then moved onto a series of different activities, including having everyone clap to the rhythm of their pulses, or having people bounce invisible balls of energy throughout the room, but it wasn’t always clear what these actions were intended to demonstrate. Overall, Travis had a good rapport with the audience but his material needed sharpening and a clearer focus.

Konrad Antony