【2012 Archives】

Welcome toThanks012 Archives I Love It, our series highlighting something onscreen we're obsessed with this week. 

As a show about identity, Derek DelGaudio’s In & Of Itselfinspires introspection. At least, that’s what I surmised about it from skimming a reviewor two before watching it.

With the frame of identity and introspection, I started the movie. Immediately, a message appeared on the screen, a prologue before the prologue:

Please take this moment to turn off your phones and silence any distractions.

Thank you for your attention.

It took me off guard, reminding me of evenings at movie and stage theaters. Opportunities that haven’t occurred in roughly a year.

In & Of Itselfwas a live stage showperformed in New York City between 2016 and 2018, and the movie on Hulu is a patchwork representation filmed at a handful of shows, each of them following a similar path of specific stories, impressive illusions and sleight of hand, intensely emotional moments, and little jokes to keep the tension from upending the whole experience. It felt nice to treat this movie with the same care I would for a move or play at a theater.

But I wasn’t at a theater. The courteous message doubly made me acutely aware of this. And in thinking about identities and introspection, it also made me think about myself and who I think I am.

“Turn off your phones.” I’ve been actively trying to disengage from my phone for months. I’ve deleted some particularly nagging apps, put timers on others, and tried to refrain from picking it up while watching shows and movies. I’m getting better.

“Silence any distractions.” I took stock of everything around me. I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet and had planned on eating a simple strawberry and fig bar with a short glass of cold brew coffee while I watched. My wife, who had a night shift at work later, was watching TV while I was at my desk with a pair of headphones on. The two cats in the apartment are always wildcards. I didn’t have the power or the want to silence any of these distractions.

“Thank you for your attention.” My apologies, but you don’t have it.

When I was 16, a doctor told me that I had ADHD. Or ADD. It doesn’t really matter which one you say, they’re used pretty interchangeably, and the first two letters are the important ones for me: Attention Deficit. I would rarely define myself as hyperactive.

Watching In & Of Itself, I was enraptured by DelGaudio’s ability to ooze intimacy and intrigue, and make so much of it feel so personal even though he performed the show over 500 times for thousands of individuals. But with that message at the beginning of the movie seared in my mind, I kept thinking both about my own identity and how my version of “enraptured” was different from many others.

It’s kind of like a constant blaze of incoming thoughts bouncing off each other, unable to coalesce into a singular idea or stay seated for more than a few seconds. It is simply too busy. The way my brain functions is a source of frustration, anxiety, sometimes depression, and on some occasions, panic.

It’s something I deal with day after day, moment after moment. I don’t talk about too much, although I’ve mentioned it in writing hereand there. But in a show about identity with a message at the start that seemed to point a finger at what I feel are large parts of mine, it’s hard to ignore.

With a disorder that impacts the fashion in which I think, it feels impossible to extricate that from the way I think about myself. With audience members choosing cards at the beginning of the show with the words “I am” and a descriptor like “makeup artist,” “a mother,” or “nobody,” I thought about what my own card would say. Scattered? Inattentive? Optimistically, contemplative?

My intention was to obey the message of turning off phones, silencing distractions, and giving attention, but that’s not how I operate.

During one part of the show, DelGaudio is telling a story about when he learned about his mother’s sexuality. He talked about how it changed the way people perceived him and his mom. It changed the way he tried to present himself.

Inexplicably, during that story, my eyes fixated on a piece of lint that had somehow become embedded between the carpentered bamboo pieces that made up my desk. In another moment, I paused to reply to a few non-pressing emails just because they popped into my head. A little later, I considered sending another couple emails and paused briefly, then remembered that I didn’t need to right now, and I should be paying attention.

Am I listening in those moments? Mostly. I certainly miss a word or two amidst the self-powering fury of my head.

The message in the beginning of In & Of Itselfput me in a self-aware, almost self-indulgent headspace that made me appreciate the show more, almost like I got to pick my own “I am” card. I think otherwise, while the stories are great and the magic tricks are intriguing, I don’t think I would have really connected with it.

Who knows, without that message I may not have even finished it.

Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itselfis now streaming on Hulu.

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