Scott Silven’s The Journey is Full of Magic and Memories

When you think of a “virtual magic show”, you probably conjure the image of something pretty kitschy and stale, maybe something just intended for the kiddos. With this in mind, I won’t refer to Scott Silven’s epic storytelling/illusionist show “The Journey” as a virtual magic show, because what you get is so vastly different from what you expect in more ways than one. Silven’s pre-show video features a gorgeously captured Scotland landscape leading to the ocean, and I got the impression, possibly mistakenly, that more of the show would be about travel and escape, two things many people have longed to do since the pandemic began.  Instead, the through-line of the piece, co-written with Rob Drummond and compellingly performed by Silven in a room that looked like a small art gallery, was a story. Or a memory –- we’re never quite sure. A small boy leaves his home and walks through the woods and fields, finally reaching a small stone cabin. The things he finds in the cabin captivate and change him, and he returns home a much older man, with a lifetime of memories. The show was bookended with the idea of connection through a cairn, and the idea that you could add a stone to the top of a structure that someone you’ve never met started to build. And this idea of connection, what we’ve all craved so much this past year, was reinforced all the way through.
Scott Silven The Journey
Image courtesy of A2SF.
If you’re hoping to simply lean back and let this intriguing story wash over you, you’re out of luck. Much of Silven’s piece relies on participation from the audience, and not just in a passive way. Through some sort of fantastic tech wizardry, the audience (limited to 30 people) is at times projected onto the walls behind and around Silven, who then can call certain people “into the room”, which is signified by a floating frame next to his head. (Before you join the broadcast, you will be asked for consent to use your microphone and camera.) You may be called upon at different times to talk about an item that has meaning to you (have something ready!), or share what image you might carve into a tree, given the opportunity. Silven uses these and other seemingly random, disconnected tidbits to pull off a string of tricks and illusions that can’t help but boggle the mind. All this was done gently and harmlessly, with a feeling of genuine connection between performer and participant, and it was exciting to be part of the action with a bunch of strangers, all wondering how he did it. Silven is a compelling storyteller and certainly creates a fascinating atmosphere in “The Journey”. But for me, each time he went from his mystical, slightly sappy monologue about connection and memory to one of these actual interactions with the people in his audience, it was a little jarring. It’s almost as if he had created two separate pieces and tried to stitch them together. Each piece worked well enough on its own that the evening didn’t feel lopsided, but I was left wanting a whole evening of one or the other, not both together. And though the impressive illusions made us gasp, I wondered, perhaps cynically, if there was something the camera wasn’t showing us. However, Silven’s story of the young boy, who returns home as an old man, was a nice thread woven through the piece. In some ways, it felt like a metaphor for what we had just experienced. We went through a moment altogether, coming out the other side with, if not a different perspective, a little more wonder than we’d had before. It may not have been as much of a journey as I was expecting, but “The Journey” was certainly a fascinating hour of escape that I won’t soon forget. Scott Silven’s The Journey runs until February 28. Tickets can be purchased online here.

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