Do you believe in magic? Danny Rudnick does. But he also believes in science.
This is hardly surprising. Danny Rudnick lives in both worlds. By day he is Mr. Rudnick, a science teacher at Beacon Academy in Evanston. And in the evenings and on the weekends, he is Mister Danny, professional magician, performing when he can for adults at places like the Chicago Magic Lounge, and for children at the University of Chicago Children’s Hospital. At the Chicago Magic Lounge, Mister Danny is currently entertaining on Wednesday nights as an “artist-in-residence” in a show called “Mister Danny’s Magic in Session.”
Much of what makes Rudnick a fascinating magician comes from how deftly he mixes science and magic . On stage, Mister Danny Rudnick gives off the vibe of both a magician and a science teacher. Imagine Mr. Keating from “Dead Poets Society” doing card tricks, and you will get some idea of Rudnick’s style and stage presence.
But more importantly, Rudnick as Mister Danny has none of that pomposity of old-school magicians. No tuxedo, no cape, no top hat (full of rabbits) for him. He dresses and acts like the schoolteacher he is.
Mister Danny works alone. His act is made up entirely of card tricks, rope tricks and various other audience-participation bits. Most of them are “close-up” affairs that are well-suited to intimate settings such as the mainstage cabaret space here. Even if you are not sitting at a front-row table, you can still get a clear view of the stage and his movements.
The best parts of Mister Danny’s act are those when he “teaches” the audience the secrets behind some of the tricks. Much of the time this is just magician patter, but he pretends to teach, draws us into his “lesson,” and then surprises us with a quick sleight-of-hand.
The show opens with that old standard of magic acts: the domino card in which spots seem to appear and disappear. First there is one spot, then three spots. Then he turns the card over, there are four spots, then six spots. Rudnick shows us how he does this with a specially prepared domino card — only two spots on one side, five on the other. He explains how our brains — and its need to complete patterns — create the illusion. We think we understand this simple optical illusion, but a moment later, with a flick of his hand he reveals the card is simply covered in spots.
Moments like this occured again and again throughout the show — and every time, big applause ensued. Not because the tricks are unique — anyone who has seen a magic act has seen a variation of all his bits — but because he does it with such disarming style and grace.
In another bit, he painstakingly takes us through the steps of a card trick involving some mental mathematics and precise shuffling.
“Are there any math nerds in the house?,” Rudnick inquired. When no one responded he quipped, “Oh, you are going to hate this trick.” That off-the-cuff aside speaks volumes about how easily he won over the audience, and ulitmately performed the illusion flawlessly.
The only quibble with Mister Danny’s show: It is too darned short. (The evening also includes a 55-minute pre-show in which a number of magicians go through the house performing table magic; a little of this goes a long way.)
“Magic is just like science,” Mister Danny told us as he ended the evening, restating the theme of the evening. “As soon as one mystery gets solved, another comes along to take its place.”
It’s tradition for performers to leave us wanting more, but 65 minutes of excellent magic was simply not enough.