The new production at A Red Orchid Theatre is entertaining and astonishing. Road Signs with Jon Tai is an hour of a little magic (he is a magician, after all) laced with storytelling and some uncanny mental wizardry. The show involves personal connection and audience involvement, so don’t be shy; be ready to stand up and say your name…and perhaps more. You’ll be among 30 or 40 new friends.
Tai is a magician, but he goes well beyond sleight of hand tricks and basic “mind reading.” With his dramatic elements and mental wizardry, he’s a complex storyteller and dramatic performer.
A Red Orchid first partnered with Tai on a pandemic-era play with magic titled Missed Connections, co-created with Tai’s longtime creative collaborator, Alex Gruhin. The 2021 virtual performance revolved around Tai’s efforts to connect with a woman he tried to meet online but the story and the magic went far beyond that. Tai performed Missed Connections off-Broadway at 59E59 later that year. This was Third Coast Review’s first connection with Jon Tai.
Road Signs, directed and co-created by Alex Gruhin, premiered at Liberty Magic in Pittsburgh (Tai’s home) in 2022.
Before you enter the theater space for Road Signs, a handwritten signboard asks you to write down your hope or dream in one word on tiny slips of paper provided—and keep that word a secret. When you enter the theater, you drop the folded paper into a box at center stage. The way these hopes and dreams reappear at the end left us all gobsmacked.
Tai tells of his own experience wanting to leave his life behind and vanish—follow road signs to something new. His personal story morsels are blended with interludes where he asks audience members to stand up, say their names and participate in some way. At one point, he called on me to come to the stage to join him in the storytelling. (I’ll say no more about that except to repeat that great British word: gobsmacked.)
This is a short review because I don’t want to say more and spoil your future experience. Road Signscontinues through August 31 at A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells St., The show runs about an hour with no intermission. Tickets are $25-$45 for shows Thursday through Monday plus a show on Wednesday, August 28.
One of the advantages of being a theater fan in Chicago is your choice of venues and theatrical styles. You can be among hundreds of audience members at a large-scale performance with a dozen or two dozen actors plus musicians plus dazzling costumes and scenic changes (as I was the day before). Or you can choose a show at one of the medium-size venues or storefront theaters where you’ll be part of a small audience and witness a compelling dramatic story or a black comedy performed by a few actors against a minimalist background. It’s all a matter of which kind of theater magic you prefer on any given night. On any Chicago weekend, you can choose from shows like Road Signs at A Red Orchid Theatre—and productions at many of its counterparts—and have a thrilling theatrical experience. Third Coast Review makes a special effort to cover productions staged at our many small and medium-sized theaters.
For more information on this and other plays, see theatreinchicago.com.
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