CABARET

Presented by Matt Penny

Teatro 2

Review by Annie Teh

In the intimate setting of Teatro 2 at the Pleasure Gardens, ‘mentalist’ Matt Penny wouldn’t have stood out in his Bermuda shorts with a cup of beer balancing on his cluttered table. Though he didn’t look like much, he will make you question the skeptic within.

After touring Frank, The Mind Reading Hotdog in Auckland and Adelaide, Penny changes things up a bit by losing the hotdog costume and slowing things down — perhaps too much. The beginning of the show was slow-paced, and a mixture of card tricks and painfully bad jokes left much to be desired, with some audience members walking out early in the show. But as the tricks became more complex, the real ‘mind-reading’ bit of the show became much more interesting.

Its saving grace was the small crowd, most of whom had a chance to be a part of each act – from picking cards and writing notes to actually standing on stage as an assistant. I myself was pulled onto the stage to volunteer my iPhone, on which he visited the city of New York on Google Maps 30 seconds before I was even prompted to think of it. It was my next dream holiday destination – but how would he have known that?

The almost amateurish presentation of Penny’s ‘gift’ added a strangely sincere quality. Through struggling to ‘remember how this trick goes’ and misplaced awkward moments of silence, Penny appeared like any other man off the street, nervous to be in front of an audience at times when his ‘mind tricks’ took a little while to work. It made the story behind his act believable — maybe he really is some guy who suddenly realized that he had a gift of clairvoyance. The question then is why he would try to cloud them behind an awkward stage presence and convoluted tricks.

Although the act was poorly timed and orchestrated, the quality of the ‘mind-reading’ tricks were enough to make you question. Matt Penny is a great primer for anyone who has ever doubted a magic trick seen on TV and wants to take a closer look. He won’t make a believer out of you, but you will be amazed all the same.

Experiments in Mind Reading 2.0 from 12-14 February at Teatro 2, Pleasure Gardens, Northbridge. Tickets available here.