Derek DelGaudio knows you don't trust him.

"I do not expect you to believe anything you're seeing or hearing," he says early in In & Of Itself, Hulu's filmed version of his well-received stage show. You're watching a performance, he acknowledges, and it's easy for a performer to deceive an audience from a stage. But that, he suggests, is all the more reason to trust him: "Knowing you won't believe me, that's the only reason I'm going to tell you the truth."

And the truth he seeks in In & Of Itselfis nothing less than the basic, but also basically unanswerable, question of "Who am I?" The show cannot be faulted for a lack of ambition or imagination, and it's never less than mesmerizing — perhaps never more so than in the moments when it doesn't quite work.

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With In & Of Itself, that search for identity begins even before the audience shuffles to their seats. Patrons are presented with dozens of cards printed with identifiers ranging from "I am an accountant" to "I am a unicorn," and asked to pick one. Stragglers are left with fewer and fewer options, perhaps forced to choose roles that don't quite fit — as so many of us are made to do in society, DelGaudio muses in a voiceover.

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What would you pick?Credit: Hulu

From there, DelGaudio takes the sparsely decorated stage to spin fables and personal anecdotes and tales that are kind of both, like the one about a Russian-roulette player that's not literallyDelGaudio, but that represents him in some deeper spiritual sense. (This is not my interpretation of the story, but his own plainly stated one.) He reflects on the way we form our identities, assign identities to others, and interact with the ones that are assigned to us. He expounds on the beauty of ships' logs and "the time between dog and wolf," i.e., dusk. And he does magic — as in card tricks, disappearing objects, astounding feats of memory and manipulation.

Far more daring than the show's messaging is its willingness to test the boundaries of what magic and storytelling can do.

To call In & Of Itselfa magic show would be like calling Nanettea standup routine, which is to say that it's factually correct but gravely undersells what it's trying to accomplish. Where most magicians seem content to shock and delight (and why not — delighted shock is a feeling in too short supply), DelGaudio digs deeper toward some greater meeting. He has a showman's effortless ability to command our attention, and his sleight-of-hand looks all the more impressive for how casually he seems to deploy it. But through his storytelling, he performs the additional trick of transforming these illusions into metaphors for how we construct ourselves and present ourselves to the world.

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At its best, the results are unexpectedly moving. DelGaudio seems to crack himself wide open in parts, as when a brick becomes his cue for his memories of growing up with a gay mother in an intolerant community. That story, like his others, gently encourages the viewer to reconsider the assumptions they hold about themselves, and to extend compassion and understanding toward others. Sometimes, that viewer is a specific individual, like the audience volunteer floored to receive a surprising message late in the show.

However, there's an unresolvable tension between the authenticity and sincerity DelGaudio is preaching and the inherent fakeness of the craft he's practicing to preach it, and it intensifies the harder the show works to provoke a reaction. It's not that it's not effective. Film director Frank Oz has cut together footage from what seems like dozens of different performances, so we see more than one volunteer rendered speechless with emotion onstage after receiving that aforementioned message. And maybe that sentiment works in the room, where you're breathing the same air as DelGaudio, where the volunteer is close enough to give a comforting pat on the shoulder, where you can feelthe spontaneous connection that can't possibly be scripted.

Derek DelGaudio gives great sad face.Credit: Hulu

But of course it can. It was. The trick is part of the routine, and DelGaudio performs it every night. From the distance of a screen, without the benefit of the energy in the room, it's hard not to wonder if his tears are genuine, or if he can cry on command. You might get to thinking about whether every show really went like this, or whether Oz just cut together the most sentimental bits. All magic — all performance, all art, really — is a form of manipulation, but is there something kind of unseemly about pushing the audience's emotions this far?

And isn't one side of this interaction giving much more than the other? DelGaudio is sharing something of himself, but it's a carefully controlled, thoroughly rehearsed version of himself hidden behind smoke and mirrors. The audience member, meanwhile, is surprised into revealing a true reaction. (Perhaps this is just my own neuroses speaking here, but that sounds like a freaking nightmare.) In its most intense moments, like its too-long final act, In & Of Itselfcan look less like an Off-Broadway show and more like a cult meeting, and DelGaudio like the omniscient, omnipotent leader gazing beatifically upon his followers.

The problem here is not DelGaudio himself, who seems like an earnest and empathetic fellow. Actually, I'm not sure it even is a problem. Though In & Of Itself's explicit messages of being true to oneself are pretty and sweet, they're also not wildly original. Far more daring, and far more unique, is its willingness to test the boundaries of what magic and storytelling can do to spread those messages.

For some, those limits will stretch and hold; In & Of Itselfwill be a singularly inventive that left them feeling seen and eager to learn how to see others in that way, too. For others (myself included), those limits will splinter and break, revealing that magic can only go so far to solve the spiritual and the mundane. In & Of Itselfmight be brave act of kindness, it might be cynical show of trickery, it might be both at once or something else altogether. Whatever else it is, it's completely fascinating.

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

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