Rainpan 43 Does "The Elephant Room"

Steve Cuiffo, Geoffrey Sobelle and Trey Lyford

Scrape away that veneer, though, and you get three highly accomplished and uncommonly verbose tricksters in Steve Cuiffo, Trey Lyford and Geoffrey Sobelle, aka Rainpan 43, who have been shrewd enough to package a show far removed from traditional magic. They are satiric deconstruction artists, really, poking fun at the David Copperfields and Cirque du whatevers of the illusionist trade by turning themselves into a trio of el cheapo losers with curly top, bouffant and mullet, who practice their trade in a cheesy New Jersey basement with found objects. Built on cinder blocks and designed to put you in mind of some worn-out Shriner-type locale, this cleverly built box of tricks features furnishings and props themed around, well, probably the most accurate referent would be "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," except these characters are guys and have neither money nor women in their lives nor any real hope therefor.

Reference: Louie and friends make the magic happen at Museum of Contemporary Art (emphasis, added).

These guys are wacky funny, and, as we see above, their stuff is muted satire on such out-of-the-blue things as transcendental meditation, stop smoking, and pop philosophy.  They're so funny that even when magic doesn't seem to work, I'm still guffawing at Sobelle's bits.

They're on stage at the Museum of Contemporary Art through this Sunday.  So if you happen to see them, please message me or e-mail me at Ron.Villejo@drronart.com.  I'd love to hear what you think!