Magnificent

Magnificent follows Maggie, a magician experiencing a crisis of faith in magic and her own abilities. The play interweaves Maggie’s fast-paced, rom-com-style contemporary storyline with a slower, melodrama-infused nineteenth-century plot that haunts her: the story of Elfred, Maggie’s great-great grandfather and fellow magician, who tries to prove himself to those who believe he’s a fraud—even though he might be exactly that. Maggie’s ex (another magician), best friend, agent, parents, and barista mostly try to help but mainly end up exacerbating her crisis—though everyone, including Maggie, comes to realize that she’s the primary obstacle standing in her way. Wrestling with her inheritance of magic, secrets, and self-deception, Maggie tries to find a way to live into her family’s legacy on her own terms. 

A Note on Style

While Elfred’s story follows a linear trajectory, Maggie’s strand jumps atemporally between different moments during a twenty-year span. The piece’s style and structure have been deeply influenced by film, particularly off-beat rom-coms of the early 2000s (for Maggie’s strand) and gothic black-and-white films, especially Ingmar Bergman’s The Magician (1958), (for Elfred’s late-nineteenth century strand).

Run time: 90 minutes with no intermission