fringe: 6 quick dick tricks - a dirk darrow investigation

This is the third time I've seen Dirk Darrow.

The first time I was the last part of the show. The second time I made $5. This time I didn't get picked for anything at all.

But I think this was the most I've seen an audience screw up their participation. And I'm saying this as someone who couldn't read the time on a watch correctly.

I don't know if it was the fact they were a Sunday crowd, or an afternoon matinee crowd or a post car racing crowd or all of the above... or what... but wow. Not least of all because people were still showing up 15 minutes into the show.

But on to the show itself.

Dirk Darrow (aka Tim Motley) is still a hard-boiled 1940's detective who... fell through a hole in the space time continuum and ended up in Miami? I think. I'm not sure exactly... I know he started to tell that story at one point, but I feel like there was a gap between him in the 40's and the Miami thing.

He's here to amaze us with his keen mind and powers of deduction. Also puns... terrible, horrible, groan inducing puns. I mean they're funny... while being awful. But there are a lot of puns and dad jokes.

Unlike the previous two shows, this one feels a lot more broken up by the tricks of the title (and for the record, it's "dick" as in private dick aka detective... not the other kind). Which isn't bad... there's still something of a throughline but it's a lot more focused on the tricks themselves this time.

When he can get people to actually play along properly, Darrow/Motley is good at what he does. Every time I go to see this kind of show I come away from it with the shape of some of the tricks... I know that for this trick I've just seen to work, these three elements have to have happened. And I might know how one of them is done... but there's always something were I just have no idea what the hell happened. Or at least how it got from A to B. And sometimes I know precisely what has to have happened. But I never saw any of it.

And I like that... I like being able to feel the edges of these tricks, because then if you can do all of that and I don't see any of the seams, you're putting on a damn good show. Which is exactly what Motley delivers.

yani's rating: 4 gumshoes out of 5