A Death-Defying Escape
Reviewed by Iris Mann
Hudson Guild Theatre
Through May 15
RECOMMENDED
Judy Carter’s compelling autobiographical play is a well-integrated combination of magic, comedy and poignancy. The show is particularly impressive for having a number of effects in a very small space. The “escape” of the title is an escape from what was painful in her past. Her stand-up style of humor serves as comic relief from a story that can’t fail to touch audiences because it contains so much genuine anguish. Carter, who wrote the script, narrates and re-enacts pivotal incidents from her life with the help of two other actors playing multiple roles.
The performance begins with rear projection of video displaying escape artist Harry Houdini doing one of his daredevil routines, together with questions and answers about facts from Houdini’s life and career.
A good deal of the show that follows focuses on Carter’s dysfunctional family, which included a self-absorbed mother and an alcoholic father. There was also a sister who was confined to a wheelchair because she suffered from cerebral palsy. In addition, Carter herself had a speech impediment as a youngster.
During the play, Carter performs some crowd-pleasing magic tricks. She tells the audience that she fell in love with the art at the age of eight, when her parents took her to a magic show. She taught herself to do magic tricks by reading books on the subject, and she started putting on shows for friends. Soon she was making money performing at birthday parties, temple events and Bar Mitzvahs. Her career grew, but she says she faced rampant sexism as a female in the male dominated world of magic. There is a scene in which she, as the first woman to appear and do card tricks at the Magic Castle Close-Up Gallery, is thrown out of the club by a man who exclaims that “cards are for men.”
She discovered she was adept at comedy when an airline lost her luggage containing the equipment for her act, and she had to do something to entertain the spectators. In addition, Carter has become a motivational speaker and the author of several books.
She also talks about being gay, and we see her re-enact her growing love affair with a woman some forty years her junior. At first, Carter is unsure about the relationship, and when they go to a movie together, she is faced with a huge dilemma, “I don’t want her to know my age, but I do want to take advantage of the senior discount.”
The show’s very beginning seems a bit haphazard, as it jumps from one time and place to another without any bridge. Soon, however, the transitions become much more orderly and easy to follow. Carter pours her energy into her performance, and even when she is dropping amusing one-liners the underlying pathos is palpable. When she is playing her disabled sister, she nails the palsied speech and, at one point, conveys the character’s agony so convincingly that it is heartbreaking to watch.
The two actors working with her, Lyndsi LaRose and Kevin Scott Allen, do excellent work as they clearly differentiate their varied roles. LaRose is particularly effective as a disdainful millennial restaurant hostess, and as Carter’s much younger lover. Allen is impressive as Carter’s father and especially as her grandmother, who teaches her to overcome her impediment and tends to see the fascist brown shirts everywhere, including in the person of a UPS delivery man.
Lee Costello’s direction makes good use of the small stage and skillfully melds all the moving parts of the complicated scenario. The contributions of lighting designer Matt Richter, sound and projections designer Nick Foran, and set designer Craig Dickens, who also created the magic illusions, enhance the show’s effectiveness in extremely close quarters.
A Death-Defying Escape will begin streaming April 9.
Hudson Guild Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles; Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through May 15; tickets to in-person performance and the streaming version at https://www.deathdefyingescape.com/
