'Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself' Trailer: This Is Not Your Typical Magic Show

Just what is Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself? DelGaudio is an illusionist, but this is not your standard magic show. Instead, it looks like a deeply personal, emotionally affecting experience that leaves several audience members either speechless or in tears. DelGaudio's one-man show was directed by Frank Oz, and now a filmed version of the performance is headed for Hulu, with the synopsis describing the special as "the story of a man fighting to see through the illusion of his own identity, only to discover that identity itself is an illusion."

I'll confess I never heard of Derek DelGaudio until this very moment, but Wikipedia brands him as an "interdisciplinary artist, primarily known as a writer, performer and magician." He was also the Artist in Residence for Walt Disney Imagineering in 2014. His one-man show Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself is headed to Hulu, and based on this trailer above, it looks intriguing. Here's the synopsis:

DEREK DELGAUDIO'S IN & OF ITSELF is a new kind of lyric poem. It tells the story of a man fighting to see through the illusion of his own identity, only to discover that identity itself is an illusion. An intimate and powerful exploration of what it means to be and be seen, the film chronicles Derek DelGaudio's attempt to answer one deceptively simple question, "Who am I?" His personal journey expands to a collective experience that forces us to confront the boundaries of our own identities.

The show originally had a 72-week, four-time-extended Off Broadway run, where it grossed $7 million across 560 performances (it was originally supposed to only run for 10 weeks). "I don't make it a habit to explain the things that are in the shows I do, and not just because that focus is on a dialogue I have absolutely no interest in participating in," DelGaudio told Deadline back in 2018. "The whole point of my work is to get people to stop asking those questions and to start focusing on the questions that matter. You know, you do a show about identity and someone wants to know how you put a ship in a bottle. It's still like I still have a long way to go in terms of getting people to hear what I have to say, which is why I have to go on to do other things."

The show was written and created by DelGaudio, directed by Frank Oz, and produced by Glenn Kaino, Vanessa Lauren, and Jake Friedman, with Daryl Roth, Tom Werner, Evelyn Colbert, and Stephen Colbert serving as executive producers. Look for it on Hulu on January 22.