THIS MUCH I KNOW

Magic Consultant

Written by Jonathan Spector

Directed by Hayley Finn

Theatre J, 2024

Part mystery, part love story, part philosophical quest, This Much I Know spins our axis of belief and understanding. Am I in charge of my choices? How could anyone think or do that? What is happiness? In the midst of a lecture, a psychology professor’s marriage fractures, sparking a theatrical study of three characters as they become entangled in a search for self-discovery. With inspiration from the research of Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, the characters search for answers in the science of decision-making. They learn that, in Kahneman’s words, thinking can be “fast or slow,” emotional or deliberate, drive-like and intuitive, or calculated.

Ryan worked as the Magic Consultant for this East coast premiere. He created and designed an original composition of sleight of hand to make a silver dollar vanish; the coin disappeared with both sleeves rolled up and both hands totally empty. Following the prompt of the script, he crafted a magical moment causing a real apple to teleport 50 feet across the stage. Ryan also gave a final magic touch to a transform a book cover in the blink of an eye.

REVIEWS:

“A superb example of wordy, wonky, exuberantly intellectual theater — the kind of theater D.C. does so well.”- Washington Post

“It’s full of revelation, magic, and mystery. In theater, we are familiar with suspension of disbelief. Rarely does theater illuminate consciousness itself.-DC Theater Arts

“What an odd thing the human mind is! –for it can make false assumptions, construct facile rationalizations, and rely on preconceived notions---as the audience soon finds out through the alternately clever, character-driven, and coiling convolutions of Theater J’s east coast premiere of the play This Much I Know.”-BroadwayWorld