The Wake
Velvet Whip
11th & Vine Street
Philadelphia
May 14, 2024
The deceased held a torn picture of himself as he faced the crowd — and we, the viewers of his wake, gasped as the photo reattached right before our eyes.
It was an act of magic, and immersive theater, known as “The Wake.” The show is hosted by spouses Lindsey Noel and Francis Menotti, otherwise known as “Couple of Magicians,” as well as Jon Gruver. I attended the latest performance held on Tuesday at the Velvet Whip.
Here’s how the weekly wakes work. At each show, an audience member is cast as the “deceased” for the following week’s vigil. They become the central character of the night, and have seven days to invite their friends and family to their funeral so they can tell stories, both fictitious and true, in their memory.
Those “memories” then become part of the magic — a jumping pad for tricks, audience participation, and character building.
This was the second time I, a magic enthusiast, went to “The Wake” for a stranger. Menotti acted as funeral director while Noel worked as a “spiritual adviser” and Gruver as orator. At the beginning of the show, Menotti asked each of us to share how we personally knew the deceased before performing individualized magic tricks for us to help ease our apparent grief, all while Gruver played moody accordion to set the scene.
There were lifelong friends, imagined coworkers, lovers and more. I, for example, introduced myself as a coffee shop acquaintance, though in reality I’d never even seen the dead man walking.
The show delivered on the magic front. Without my giving too many surprises away, I can say that one moment stood out to me: When the deceased, who was named Neil, held a photo of himself that was ripped in four. The photo was then reattached with tape. But when the tape was pulled off, the photo of Neil was somehow perfectly restored.
I often found myself astonished by the logic-defying acts taking place before me. But it was the world immersion and theatrical audience participation that set the show apart from others. It was also the component of the show that I’d like to see the hosts develop a step further.
For example, I could tell the photo, an image of Neil in Alaska, was of personal importance to him. I wanted to understand the significance of the photo: Why was this image a powerful enough part of Neil’s story that it had the capacity to come back to life even after it was torn apart?
The use of magic to symbolize the lasting force and meaning of human life kindled a desire within me to learn more about the stranger named Neil I was only pretending to know.
Maybe that’s just the poet and community organizer in me. But the event seems like a chance to go beyond artistic entertainment into active community building. At the end of the night, I was still in a room of strangers.
Of course, it takes more than a week to stage a stranger’s story. And probably more than a night for a room of strangers to forge bonds that are beyond superficial.
At the same time, the event did invigorate my appetite for more magic in the arts — as well as my hunger for community dedicated to creation. Even though none of us really knew each other, there was a rare feeling of connectedness across the crowd. We all had something in common. It wasn’t necessarily Neil, the deceased, as would be the typical point of association at a wake. It was a shared sense of suspended belief. Or maybe it was just a night of magic.
(For my verse-version review of the evening, click on the video at the top of this story.)
NEXT
Attend the next “wake” on Tuesday, May 21, at the Black Squirrel Club at 7:30. Tickets can be purchased here.
