While last year’s mentalist show was held in Susie’s, Tang Theater provided a bigger venue for this year’s performance .
While last year’s mentalist show was held in Susie’s, Tang Theater provided a bigger venue for this year’s performance .
While last year’s mentalist show was held in Susie’s, Tang Theater provided a bigger venue for this year’s performance .
Christopher Carter, a mind-trick magician, stood with two silver coins placed directly over his eye sockets, which were tightly held in place by multiple layers of duct tape and a blindfold. He instructed everyone in the audience to pass in an index card with four things on it: name, a personal fact, a meaningful number, and a burning question. Then, with the index cards crumpled up in his hand, he went from audience member to audience member, correctly guessing what each person had written.
Tiffany Li ’22 was one of the audience members whose index card was picked. Carter had guessed everything she had written on her card in exact detail: her name, how she had three dogs but was actually scared of dogs, her mother’s birthday, and her question: “Will I live in Shanghai when I’m older?”
“I was so shocked. I literally gasped… For me, the index card trick was the most impressive. I was like ‘Holy cow, what the heck?’ I was with my friends the whole time, and they can attest that I did not talk to him or make any contact with him, so there was no way he would have known the information beforehand,” said Li.
Carter performed his mentalist act in two shows in Tang Theater this past Friday. According to Carter, the part of the show he loved the most was directly after his index card trick, when he ripped the duct tape off of his eyes and could hear everyone in the audience cringe. Carter explained why the index card trick was his favorite and his reaction to the audience.
“The whole thing with the index cards and working with the audience, that’s what I’m most known for, and it’s definitely my favorite. I just loved the energy from the crowd. They were laughing at all the good spots, and that’s what makes it fun for me,” said Carter.
In another trick, Carter asked four participants to memorize a random card from a stack, and then he proceeded to ask them questions about their cards while watching their body language. After only about a minute, he correctly guessed the cards of all four participants. One of the participants, Jennifer Wang ’22, described the disbelief she felt when he correctly named her card.
“I chose the five of spades, and he basically asked if it was a high or low number, if it was a face card, and what color it was. You would look at him and somehow signal to him what it was as he was saying it. He said that he saw my eyes twitch and I leaned forward at some points, and I felt like that contributed a lot to how he guessed what my card was. I was so shocked. I felt in part kind of violated, but it was really crazy. It was really fun,” said Wang.
Audience member Sabrina Codrington ’21 commented on how the atmosphere of this year’s show was better than it has been in previous years, in part due to the location difference.
“I think there was definitely more energy in the crowd, and I think that having it in Tang [Theater] versus in Kemper [Auditorium] or in [Susie’s] made it a very different experience, yet everything was equally as impressive,” said Codrington.
