What a great idea: a magic show with a live backing track. In The Crooner and the Conjurer, Eddie Gammill, the crooner, and Chris Moorman, the conjurer, offer for our viewing and listening pleasure a double act that’s a lovely magic show interspersed with impressive and often hilarious musical bits played on a ukelele with accompanying operatic skill. With a plaid green suit, blue bowtie, lion plushies, and all, Moorman pulls off whimsical magic bits with audience members’ collaboration, inviting both the young and old to partake in collective joy around everyday marvels.
This wonderful little show is a showcase for both Gammill’s and Moorman’s skills and delightful selves. They remind both artists and nonartists in the room — with their creative joyousness and saying it outright — why would you live a life without expressing your “true colors,” as Cyndi Lauper put it and as Eddie covers it on operatic ukelele? How boring, unfulfilled, and devoid of life’s music would that be?
This show was delightful, no doubt. But I couldn’t shake the thought that even more could be done with the show’s premise. Why not have some music-based magic? I can’t bring myself to really “critique” a show that’s about two people bringing us the things they love doing with radical sincerity and clear skill. But to maximize the show’s theatrical excellence on top of that primary mission — which it’s right to be and should remain — why not use the two skills on stage to complement each other beyond both just being there, in the same show? What if the surprise and whimsy of these two art forms could be taken simultaneously, to the even better execution of both?
The show could also be an even stronger 50-minute act if it opened with an example of what most of the show is: magic tricks with music in the background. Currently, it opens with a wonderful song by Gammill, but it was not completely clear to me until after the song what the show was going to be. Maybe, if Gammill and Moorman were to come up with one of these tricks that also uses music, it could be placed at the start without the need for creating any others right away.
There’s so much talent on display in this gem of a show, and with a little finessing of the programming, it can be even more effective at showcasing this pair’s charm.
Running Time: 50 minutes
Genre: Comedy
Dates and Times:
- July 20 at 1:20 PM
Venue: Delirium, 1120 Connecticut Avenue NW
Tickets: $15
More Info and Tickets: The Crooner and the Conjuror
The complete 2024 Capital Fringe Festival schedule is online here.
