Jon Tai is something of an antimagician. Tricking you, he says, isn’t exactly the point. So while yes, his interactive show Missed Connections can look like some sort of physics-defying, supernatural-forces-are-at-play experience, that’s not the most extraordinary thing. The most extraordinary thing, Tai says, is creating a one-of-a-kind, collectively intense connection between 20 people suddenly, simultaneously swept up in astonishment.
“This might seem like a bit out of left field, but I feel like there were a lot of parallel concepts in Grey House, with the way it played a lot with expectations and preconceived notions. Magic is about shaping people’s perceptions, making it seem like you’re going to a certain place in a certain way—and then you are not,” Tai said.
“I was a skeptical, rational human being so I knew what I was seeing was impossible. But there it was. It was like my brain short circuited. I was obsessed—not so much with finding out how it was done, but with figuring out what this was,” he said.
Fitzgerald eventually watched a version of Missed Connections.
“Every step of the way it is an invitation for the audience to take a leap. To invite you to look at your world in a different way.” v
2/2-2/28: Tue, Thu-Fri, and Sun 7 PM CST; Sat 5 and 8 PM CST; Sun 2/14, 5 and 8 PM CST; no performance Sun 2/7; aredorchidtheatre.org, $25.
